Eugene Rhodes - Stepsons of Light

There are two sorts of people – those who point with pride and those who view with alarm. They are quite right. The world will not soon forget Parkman “of Ours.” Here was a man of learning, common sense, judgment and wide sympathies. Yet once he stumbled; the paregorical imperative, which impels each of us to utter ignominious nonsense, urged Francis Parkman to the like unhappiness, drove him to father and put forth this void and singular statement:

I have often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give impulse to this strange migration; but whatever they may be, whether an insane hope of a better condition of life, or a desire of shaking off the restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it is that multitudes bitterly repent the journey.

The year was 1846; the place, Independence, in Missouri; that strange migration was the winning of the West. Mr. Parkman viewed it with alarm. The passage quoted may yet be found in the first chapter of “The Oregon Trail.” We, wise after the event, now point with pride to that strange migration of our fathers. The Great Trek has lasted three hundred years. To-day we dimly perceive that the history of America is the story of the pioneer; that on our shifting frontiers the race has been hammered and tempered to a cutting edge.

That insane hope of better things – the same which beckoned on the Israelites and the Pilgrim Fathers; restraints of law and society, which in Egypt made the Israelite a slave, in England gave the Puritan to the pillory and the stocks, and in this western world of ours took the form of a hollow squire, founder by letters patent of a landed oligarchy – so that the bold and venturesome sought homes in the unsquired wilderness; and restlessness, that quality which marks the most notable difference between man and sandstone. Restlessness, shaking off restraints, insane hopes – in that cadence of ideas what is there of haunting, echolike and familiar? Restraints of society? When the very stones of the streets shrieked at him the name of that town – Independence! Now we know the words that haunted us: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!” Never was echo clearer. The emigrants were there in exercise of those unavoidable rights. Not happiness, or the overtaking of happiness; the pursuit of happiness – the insane hope of a better condition of life.

That which perplexed Parkman looked upon, disapproving, was the settlement of America – the greatest upbuilding of recorded time; and the prime motive of that great migration was the motive of all migrations – the search for food and land. They went west for food. What they did there was to work; if you require a monument – take a good look!

Here is the record of a few late camp fires of the Great Trek.

The lady listened with fluttering attention. The lady was sweet and twenty, and the narrator – myself – was spurred to greater effort. Suddenly a thought struck her. It was a severe blow. She sat up straight, she stiffened her lips to primness, her fine eyes darkened with suspicion, her voice crisped to stern inquiry.

“I suppose, when Sunday came, you kept right on working?”

It was an acid supposition. Her dear little nose squinched to express some strong emotion – loving-kindness, perhaps; her dear little upper lip curled ominous. She looked as though she might bite.

“Kept right on working is right. We had to keep on working,” I explained. “We couldn’t very well work six days gathering cattle and then turn them all loose again on the seventh day – could we now?”

The lady frowned. The lady sniffed. She was not one to be turned aside by subterfuge. She leaned forward to strike, and flattened her brows in scorn. She looked uncommonly like a rattlesnake. She said:

“I suppose you couldn’t put them in the barn-yards?”

And I learned about readers from her.

Cattle were once grazed to the nearest railroad – say, a thousand miles – yes, and beyond that railroad to Wyoming grass; or Montana. No one who saw those great herds forgot them or ever quite refrained from speech of those stirring days, to children or grandchildren. That is why so many think – not unnaturally – that range cattle were always held under herd. But it is a mistaken impression. Cattle do not thrive under herd.

Cattle on the free range – everybody’s cattle – were turned loose and mixed together. There were no fences except as deep rivers counted for such; the Panama Canal was yet undug. Twice a year, in spring and fall, everybody gets together to work the cattle at the rodeo, or round-up. They brand the calves; they take into the day herd all strays, all steers or cows to be shipped, and nothing more. From cattle gathered each day steers and strays are cut out and thrown into the day herd; all the others, the range cattle, are turned loose with a vigorous shove in that direction most remote from to-morrow’s round-up.

Again, your ranch was that land to which you had either title or claim; its purpose was to give a water right on stream or lake or to hold spring, well or tank. But your range was either Texas land or Uncle Sam’s land as far as your cattle would range from your various water rights – say, twenty-five miles in each direction. Your range was that country where you were reasonably sure your cattle would not be stolen by strangers.

Here was the way of the Bar Cross round-up; with slight variations it was the way of any round-up. The Bar Cross Company, running the biggest brand on the Jornada range, supplied one foreman, one straw boss, three top hands and the captain of the day herd; one horse wrangler, who herded the saddle horses by day; one night wrangler, who herded them by night; and mounts for these eight. The Bar Cross also furnished one red-headed cook; one chuck wagon and the chuck – chuck being grub – and one bed wagon to haul bed rolls from camp to camp, and also to haul wood and water between times. Item: Four mules for the chuck wagon, and two for the bed wagon. The night wrangler drove the bed wagon; night wranglers were not supposed to sleep.

Other ranchmen, co-users of the Bar Cross range, sent each a man and his mount to represent. A man with many cattle might send two or more men; the 7 T X – next to the Bar Cross the biggest brand on the Jornada – sent four. Each man or each two men brought tarp and bedding on a pack horse.

From north, south, east and west came the stray men, each with mount and bed. Stray men stayed with the outfit as long as it pleased them. When they were satisfied they cut out from the day herd their own cattle, together with those of their neighbors, and drove them home. As a usual thing, three or four would throw in and drive back together. If by chance some man was homeward bound and alone, the Bar Cross detailed a man to help him home; a friendly and not imprudent custom.

To sum up: The Bar Cross paid nine men, and provided good grub for all comers; in return it had the help of twenty-five to forty men in working the range; the rodeo, or round-up.

During the weeks or months of that working, wherever some other outfit gave a round-up – east, west, south or north – there, with mount and bed, went either a Bar Cross man or one from some other brand of the Jornada people, bringing back all Jornada cattle.

A word about horses. In the fall, when grass was green and good, a mount was eight to thirteen head. One must be gentle; he was night horse; every man stood guard at night two and a half to three hours; all night in case of storm. For the others, the best were cutting horses, used afternoons, when the day’s drive was worked; the poorest were circle horses and were ridden in the forenoon, when the round-up was made. But in the spring it is different. Grass is scant and short; corn is fed, and four horses go to a mount; the range is worked lightly.