Historical fiction; Ranch life -- Fiction; Western stories
The wagon was found encamped on the Prairie Dog. An hour's rest was
allowed, fresh horses were saddled, when Joel turned to the cook and
wrangler: "Make camp to-night on the middle tank, below headquarters.
We'll ride on ahead and drift all the cattle up the creek. Our only
round-up to-morrow will be well above the old winter corral. It's our
last gathering of beef, and we want to make a general round-up of the
range. We'll drift cattle until dark, so that it'll be late when we
reach camp."
The outfit of horsemen followed the old trail, and only sighted the
Beaver late in the afternoon. The last new tank, built that spring, was
less than a mile below the old crossing; and veering off there, the
drag-net was thrown across the valley below it, and a general drift
begun. An immense half-circle, covering the limits of the range, pointed
the cattle into the valley, and by moving forward and converging as the
evening advanced, a general drift was maintained. The pace was barely
that of grazing, and as darkness approached, all cattle on the lower end
of the range were grazed safely above the night camp and left adrift.
The wagon had arrived, and the men reached camp by twos and threes.
There was little danger of the cattle returning to their favorite range
during the night, but for fear of stragglers, at an early hour in the
morning the drag-net was again thrown out from camp. Headquarters was
passed before the horsemen began encountering any quantity of cattle,
and after passing the old winter corral, the men on the points of the
half-circle were sent to ride the extreme limits of the range. By the
middle of the forenoon, everything was adrift, and as the cattle
naturally turned into the valley for their daily drink, a few complete
circles brought the total herd into a general round-up, numbering over
fifteen hundred head of mixed cattle.
Meanwhile the wagon and remuda had followed up the drift, dinner was
waiting, and after the mid-day meal had been bolted, orders rang out.
"Right here's where all hands and the cook draw fresh horses," said
Sargent, "and get into action. It's a bulky herd, and cutting out will
be slow. The cook and wrangler must hold the beeves, and that will turn
the rest of us free to watch the round-up and cut out."
By previous agreement, in order to shorten the work, Joel was to cut out
the remnant of double-wintered beeves, Manly the Lazy H's, while Sargent
and an assistant would confine their selections to the single-wintered
ones in the ---- Y brand. Each man would tally his own work, even
car-loads were required, and a total would constitute the shipment. The
cutting out began quietly; but after a nucleus of beeves were selected,
their numbers gained at the rate of three to five a minute, while the
sweat began to reek from the horses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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