15 - The Log of a Cowboy: The Beaver

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter fifteen of The Log of a Cowboy by Andy Adams.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain the Beaver.
After leaving the country tributary to the Solomon River, we
crossed a wide table land for nearly a hundred miles, and,
with the exception of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, without a

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landmark worthy of a name. Western Kansas was then classified
worthily too, as belonging to the Great American Desert, and
most of the country for the last five hundred miles
of our course was entitled to a similar description. Once
the freshness of spring had passed, the plain took on

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her natural sun burnt color, and day after day, as
far as the eye could reach, the monotony was unbroken
save by the variations of the mirages. On every hand.
Except that morning and evening, we were never out of
sight of these optical illusions, sometimes miles away, and then
again close up, when an antelope standing half a mile

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distance looked as tall as a giraffe. Frequently the lead
of the herd would be an eclipse from these illusions,
when to the men in the rear, the horsemen and
cattle in the lead would appear like giants in an
old faery story. If the monotony of the sea can
be charged with dulling men's sensibilities until they become pirates,

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surely this desolate, arid plane might be equally charged with
the wrongdoing of not a few of our craft. On
crossing the railroad at Grinnell, our foreman received a letter
from Lovell directing him to go to Culbertson, Nebraska, and
there meet a man who was buying horses for a
Montana ranch. Our employer had his business eye open for

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a possible purchase for our Ermuda, and if the horses
could be sold for delivery after the herd had reached
its destination, the opportunity was not to be overlooked. Accordingly,
On reaching Beaver Creek, where we encamped, Flood left us
to ride through to the Republican River during the night.
The trail crossed this river about twenty miles west of Culbertson,

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and if the Montana horse fire were yet there, it
would be no trouble to come up to the trail
crossing and look at our horses. So after supper, while
we were catching up our night horses, Flood said to us, now, boys,
I'm going to leave the outfit and heard under Joe
Stallings as segundo. It's hardly necessary to leave you under

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any one as foreman, for you all know your places,
but some one must be made responsible, and one bad
boss will do less harm than half a dozen that
mightn't agree. So you can put honeymen on guard in
your place at night, Joe, if you don't want to
stand your own, watch now behaviors, and when I meet

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you on the Republican, I'll bring out a box of
cigars and have it charged up as axle grease when
we get supplies at Oglala, and don't sit up all
night telling fools stories. Now that's what I call a
good cow boss, said Joe Stallings as our foreman rode
away in the twilight. Besides, he used passable good judgment

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in selecting a segundo. Now, honeyman, you heard what he said.
Billy dear, I won't rob you of this chance to
stand a guard. Mac cann, have you got on your
next list of supplies any jam and jelly for Sundays?
You have? That's right, son, That saves you from standing
the guard to night officer when you come off guard

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at three thirty in the morning, build the cook up
a good fire. Let me see, yes, and I'll detail
young Tom Quirk and the rebel to grease the wagon
and harness your mules before starting in the morning. I
want to impress it on your mind, Ma, can that
I can appreciate a thoughtful cook? What's that, honeyman? No, indeed,

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you can't ride my night horse. Love me, love my dog.
My horse shares the snap. Now. I don't want to
be unto the necessity of speaking to any of you,
first Guard, but flop into your saddles ready to take
the herd. My Turnip says, it's eight o'clock now, why
you missed your calling? You'd make a fine second mate.

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On a river steamboat driving niggers called back at Quin's
forest as the first guard rode away. When our guard returned,
Officer intentionally walked across Staling's bed, and catching his spur
in the tarpaulin, fell heavily across Arsugundo. Excuse me, said
John Rising, But I was just nosing around looking for

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the foreman. Oh it's you, is it? I just wanted
to ask ifore thirty wouldn't be plenty early to build
up the fire wood's a little scarce, but I'll burn
the prairies if you say so. That's all I wanted
to know. You may lay down now and go to sleep.
Our camp fire that night was a good one, and

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in the absence of flood, no one felt like going
to bed until drowsiness compelled us. So we lounged around
the fire, smoking the hours away, and in spite of
the admonition of our foreman, told stories far into the night.
During the early portion of the evening, dog stories occupied
the boards. As the evening wore on the subject of

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revisiting the Old States came up for discussion. You all
talk about going back to the Old States, said Joe Stallings,
But I don't take very friendly to the idea. I
felt that way once and went home to Tennessee. But
I want to tell you that after you live a
few years in the sunny Southwest and get on to
her ways, you can't stand it back there like you

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think you can now. When I went back and I
reck and my relations will average up pretty well. Fought
in the Confederate Army, vote the Democratic ticket, and belong
to the Methodist Church. They all seem to be rapidly
getting lo coed. Why my uncles when they think of
planting the old buckfield or the widow's acre into any crop,

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they first go projecting around in the soil, and, as
they say, analyze it to see what kind of fertilizer
it will require to produce the best results. Back there,
if one man raises ten acres of corn and his
neighbor raises twelve, the one raising twelve is sure to
look upon the other as though he lacked enterprise or

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had modest ambitions. Now up around that old cowtown Ablene, Kansas,
it's a common sight to see the cornfields stretch out
like an ocean, and then their stock. They're all locoed
about that. Why, I know people who will pay a
hundred dollars for siring a colt, And if there's one

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drop of mongrel blood in that sire's veins for ten
generations back on either side of his ancestral tree, it
condemns him. Though he may be a good horse. Otherwise
they are strong on standard bread horses. But as for me,
my mount is all right. I wouldn't trade with any
man in this outfit. Without it would be flood And

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there's none of them standard bread either. Why shucks. If
you had to pick all the standard bread horses in Tennessee,
you couldn't handle a herd of cattle like ours with
them without carrying a commissary with you to feed them. No,
they would never fit here. It takes a range raised
horse to run cattle, one that can rustle and live

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on grass. Another thing about those people back in those
old states, not one in ten I'll gamble knows the
teacher he sends his children to school to. But when
he has a promising colt to be shod, the owner
goes to the blacksmith's shop himself, and he and the
smith will sit on the back sill of the shop,

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and they will discuss how to shoe that Philly so
as to give her certain knee action which she seems
to need. Probably, says, one little weight on her toe
would give her reach. And there they will sit in
pow Wow and make medicine for an hour or two.
And while the blacksmith is showing her, the owner will
tell him in confidence, what a wonderful burst of speed

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she developed yesterday while he was speeding her on the
back stretch. And then just as he turned her into
the home stretch. She threw a shoe and he had
the checker in. But if there had been any one
to catch her time, he was certain it was better
than a two ten clip. And that same colt you
couldn't cut a lame cow out of the shade of

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a tree on her. A man back there, he's rich too,
though his father made it and gave a thousand dollars
for a pair of dogs before they were born. The
terms were worn half cash and the balance when they
were old enough to ship to him, and for fear
they were not the proper mustard, he had the dog

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man sue him in court for the balance, so as
to make him prove the pedigree. Now, Bob there thinks
that old hound of his is the real stuff, but
he wouldn't do now. Almost every year the style changes
in dogs back in the Old States. One year maybe
it's a little white dog with red eyes, and the
very next it's a long benched legged black dog with

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a Dutch name that right now I disremember common old pothhounds,
and every day yellow dogs have gone out of style entirely. No,
you can all go back that want to, But as
long as I can hold a job with level and flood.
I'll try and worry along in my own way on
finishing this little yarn. Stallings arose, saying, I must take

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a listen to my men unheard. It always frets me,
for fear my men will ride too near the cattle.
A minute later he called us, and when several of
us walked out to where he was listening, we recognized
round trees voice singing, little black bull came down the hillside,
down the hillside, down the hillside, Little black bull came

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down the hillside long time ago. Whenever my men sing
that song on guard, it tells me that everything is
amply serene, remarked Arsugundo with the air of a field marshal,
as we walked backed to the fire. The evening had
passed so rapidly. It was now almost time for the

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second guard to be called, and when the lateness of
the hour was announced, we scurried to our blankets like
rabbits to their warrens. The second guard usually got an
hour or two sleep before being called, but in the
absence of our regular foreman, the mice would play. When
our guard was called at one o'clock, as usual, officer

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delayed us several minutes looking for his spurs, and I
took the chance to ask the rebel why it was
that he never wore spurs. It's because I'm superstitious, son,
he answered, I own a fine pair of silver plait
at spurs that have a history, and if you're ever
at Level's ranch, i'll show them to you. They were

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given to me by a mortally wounded Federal officer the
day the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fault. I was
an orderly carrying dispatches, and in passing through a wood
from which the Union army had been recently driven, this
officer was sitting at the root of a tree, fatally wounded.
He motioned me to him, and when I dismounted, he said, Johnny,

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reb please give a dying man a drink. I gave
him my canteen, and after drinking from it, he continued,
I want you to have my spurs. Take them off,
listen to their history, as you have taken them off
me to day. So I took them off a Mexican
general the day the American Army entered the capital of Mexico.

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End of Chapter fifteen