“At this moment an unfortunate affair happened. An Indian had given me a
white bulldog. That dog had more sense than half the people and I loved
him like a brother. One day the dog got too close to the heels of a
heifer and she kicked one eye out. He felt so bad over it that I wrote
to an eye doctor to send me a glass eye for my dog. He wrote back that
he did not deal in dogs’ eyes, but sent me a bright blue human eye. One
of the boys and I managed to fix it in and the dog was very proud of it,
only it fit so tight he could not wink. He would lay for hours asleep
with the glass eye staring with an expression of strangled innocence
confronting the murderer. Where I went that dog went also, and all
through the conversation with Governor Waite my dog lay on the floor
asleep, but that glass eye kept staring at the governor’s dog until he
took it for an insult and came over to our part of the room for a scrap.
“In the melee of separating the dogs the governor jabbed his thumb in
that glass eye and nearly cut it off. That made him so mad he would not
talk any more and I may have to wander on through eternity guessing what
he would have said. My dog felt so humiliated that he went home by the
back alleys.”
Other stories followed, relating to horses and daring deeds of their
riders. It seemed like we had only slept a few moments when we were
awakened by the call of the boss, “roll out,” “roll out.” In a short
time every man of the twenty-five was on his feet, rolling up his bed
and throwing it in a pile ready to be loaded on the wagon. All gladly
answered to the call, “Chuck’s ready!”
Each man took a plate and tin cup, knife, fork and spoon, and went to
the Dutch ovens, where everything was cooked and helped himself. The
breakfast consisted of bacon, potatoes, warm bread and black coffee.
Seated on the ground Turk fashion, with plate on knees and cup by side,
we ate our hearty meal.
After breakfast the bed wagon was loaded with its freight. The chuck
wagon which was driven by the cook and drawn by six horses, pulled out
for the next camp, followed by the wrangler with the bunch of unused
saddle horses. Orders were given to the riders, the place of the next
camp appointed. The range was divided into circles, beginning at the old
camp and ending at the new. Riding the outside is the hardest of all.
The boys took turns at this as each must use his best horse, start first
and get in last. It is his business to round up all the cattle on the
limits of the range and throw them toward the center, where they will be
taken up by the next man and so on until the whole is bunched together
and driven to camp. Here they were held in a bunch until the foreman
with his chosen riding men and trained cut horses went into the bunch
and cut out the beef cattle and calves that had escaped branding and ear
marking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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