Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A LOAD OF MEAT

  The sun was hanging low in the western sky on the evening of thesecond day after this when the little bunch of stock, having enteredthe home valley and crossed the streams which ran down from the lowmountains back of the ranch, approached the corner of the pastureand saw the lake. The low ranch buildings were still hidden behindthe hills, but all the surroundings were those of home. The cattlewere left by the lake to mingle with the others that within the pastfew weeks had been brought to the home range, but the men drove thehorses along, intending to turn them into the big pasture until it hadbeen determined what saddle animals should be kept up. Most of them,however, would be turned out, and would do no more work until the beefround-up a couple of months later.

  There was no especial work for any one to do, and Hugh asked Jack whyhe and Donald did not ride on to the house and see Mr. Sturgis. Whenthis was suggested Donald said he would be very glad to do so.

  "I have not said anything to you about it, Jack, but I have a letter ofintroduction to Mr. Sturgis from my uncle, who is an old friend of his.I think that they were in college together, a good many years ago."

  "Well," said Jack, "you'll like Uncle Will all right, I know. If youdon't, you'll be different from most of the other people in thiscountry. Of course I like him because he's my uncle, and perhaps youmight say Hugh likes him because he works for him, but I think you'llfind that most people on the range and at the railroad think a gooddeal of him. I once overheard a man say to another: 'What I like aboutthat man Sturgis is that he don't put on any airs; he's just as commonas you and me.' That sounds a little queer, of course, because backEast when anybody speaks of another person as common, it has a badsound; but I reckon out here they use the word in a sense that maybe wehave forgotten."

  The boys started ahead, and turning the corner of the pasture fencethey galloped along toward the house which they could now see. No oneseemed to be stirring, until they were near enough to the blacksmithshop to hear the ringing of hammer on anvil, and for the hoof-beats oftheir horses to be heard in the shop. Then Joe, with a hammer in onehand and a pair of tongs in the other, looked out of the door, and onrecognizing Jack shouted a greeting and waved his tools. The boys drewup by the corral fence and tied their horses, and then, having shakenhands with Joe, went up to the house to see Mr. Sturgis. He was foundwriting in the sitting-room, and welcomed the boys cordially. When hehad read Donald's letter he gave him an extra handshake and told himthat he must stay there as long as he would. Donald's arrival had notbeen altogether a surprise to Mr. Sturgis, for among the mail waitingat the ranch were two or three letters for the young Englishman, aswell as for Jack; and after the first greetings were over the two boysretired to read their mail.

  Among Jack's was a letter from Sam Williams, saying that he was inCheyenne and had succeeded in getting work; that he had left the horseand saddle at Brown's livery stable, as promised, and that when Jackwas ready, he would be glad to have him send him the fifteen dollarsstill due him on the saddle and bridle. Jack felt that he must inquireabout this at once, and see that Williams got his money as soon aspossible.

  When the reading of the letters was over, Mr. Sturgis looked up fromhis writing.

  "Jack," he said, "Hugh told me about the trouble over at Powell'sthe day you started away from here, and a few days ago when Joe wasin town, Brown told him that some weeks before a man had left at hisstable that gray horse and a saddle and bridle which were to come outto you here. Joe brought them out. He brought out Donald's trunk on thesame trip."

  "Yes, Uncle Will; I have a letter here from the young fellow who leftthe things at Brown's, saying that he had done so. I owe him some moneyon that saddle, and must see that it goes to him the next time anybodygoes to town."

  "Yes," said Mr. Sturgis, "don't neglect that. If you really owe money,pay it as quickly as you can. How do you mean to send it to the man?I can give you a check, of course, but that may not be the mostconvenient way for him."

  "No," replied Jack, "I guess it wouldn't be. It should be sent eitherin currency in a registered letter, or by post-office order. I supposea money order would be the safest."

  "I think so too, but of course it is a little more trouble. However, Ithink I would send it in that way. You would not care to have to paythe money twice. Speak to me about it the next time any one goes totown. I think perhaps somebody will have to go before very long."

  "There come the horses, Uncle Will," said Jack. "Don't you want to goout and look at them? They're all in first-class shape, it seems to me,considering the work that they have had to do; but between now and thefall round-up they'll fatten up and be in splendid shape for that."

  They walked down to the barn and saw the horses turned into the corral,and Mr. Sturgis shook hands with Mason, whom until now he had nevermet. The loads taken off the horses were dropped in front of thebunk-house, for Jack and Donald had agreed that they would stop downthere; they would not sleep at the house. To this Mr. Sturgis at firstdemurred a little, but assented when the boys had given him theirreasons.

  For two or three days now nothing seemed to happen at the ranch. Thesaddle horses were turned into the big pasture, and the men who hadjust come in from the round-up camp loafed about the house, reading ortalking, or sleeping. Very likely they were all a little tired fromtheir long hard work and enjoyed the days of idleness; but that couldnot last. Their lives had been too active for them to settle downinto doing nothing. Therefore, when Mrs. Carter announced one day atbreakfast that the supply of fresh meat was running low, Mr. Sturgiswith a smile asked Jack and Donald whether they wished to go out andkill a load of meat, or whether he should send out and have a beefdriven in.

  The boys declared that they would make the hunt; and up on the mountainback of the house, where the elk had their summer home, seemed the onlyplace to go. To be sure, there was a bunch of antelope over in thebig pasture, and a few mule deer lived in some of the ravines runningdown from the hills; but Mr. Sturgis liked to see these animals nearthe house and had requested his own people and their neighbors not todisturb either the deer or the antelope.

  Jack and Donald agreed therefore that the next morning they would climbthe mountain and try to find an elk; and when Jack Mason heard of it,he said that he wanted to go along, if his job should be only to leadthe pack horse. He was already tired of loafing.

  Mr. Sturgis had decided to send Hugh to town the next day, and thatevening Jack arranged with him to get a money order to send to Williamsat Cheyenne.

  Soon after breakfast the following morning, the three started on theirhunt. To Jack the trail up the mountain was familiar enough, for he hadknown it now since small boyhood. To the others it was new and full ofinterest; and Donald, especially, looked down with great interest andcuriosity into the deep, narrow and dark ravines above which the trailran.

  Suddenly Jack, who was in the lead, held up his hand, and then slowlyslipped off his horse on the upper side and came quietly back to Donaldand Mason.

  "There are five bull elk," he said, "down here in this ravine, just alittle ahead of us. I don't think we want to kill them, but you mightlike to see them, Donald. I don't know if you ever saw elk at this timeof the year, just when their horns are half grown. It's interesting tosee them go through the thick timber, and to notice how careful theyare to keep from knocking their horns against the trunks and branchesamong which they travel. Of course, the horns are very tender at thisseason, and the animals take the greatest care not to hit them againstanything."

  "I'd greatly like to see them, Jack. Can we get a look at them?"

  "Yes; slip off your horse, and we can go forward on foot and get a lookat them, I think. They were moving when I saw them, but I don't thinkthey saw me."

  "Well," said Mason, "I'll stay back, and bring the horses on up to yourhorse, Jack."

  "All right," answered Jack; and he and Donald went forward. They hadpassed Jack's horse only
about twenty feet, when Jack stopped andpointed, and in a moment Donald could see the yellow bodies of the elkshowing up in the shadow as they walked along the ravine.

  "Shan't we kill one?" whispered Donald after a moment.

  "It doesn't seem worth while. These fellows are growing their hornsnow, and they'll be poor enough for a month longer. You know, thosehorns grow about as fast as corn, and they're a terrible drain on theanimal. On the other hand, just as soon as they have got their growth,and begin to harden, the bull elk lay on fat in a way to astonishanybody, and by the end of August, or first of September, they arefit to kill--hog fat. Besides that, even if these elk were in goodorder now, we don't want to finish our hunt at the very beginning ofthe day, and then have to go back to the ranch and stay around thereuntil night. If we keep on we can very likely find a yearling or atwo-year-old heifer that will make us good meat and be worth bringingback."

  For some time the boys watched the elk's slow progress up the ravine,but at length the animals turned off into a side ravine and disappearedamong trees and brush and were seen no longer. Then the boys went backto their horses, remounted and rode on up the trail.

  After a time they came up out of the ravine into a narrow grassy valleywith little groves of quaking aspen and bordered on either side by highridges of weathered pink granite. Here the slope was gradual, until atthe head of the valley they reached a rolling plateau, with aspens hereand there, and farther off higher hills, crowned by pines. The countrythey were entering was singularly picturesque. Donald was greatlyimpressed, while the apparently practical Jack Mason declared that itwas as pretty a hunting country as he'd ever seen.

  Everywhere in the bare soil of the plateau which showed among the tuftsof grass, already beginning to turn yellow, were seen the traces ofelk. Some of the tracks had been made in the spring when the soil waswet; they had sunk deep in the soft mud, and showed the imprints of thedew-claws. Other much later foot-prints had been made on dry earth,but were dull, windworn, and covered with dust; while occasionally wereseen tracks fresh and glistening, made by animals which had passedalong only a short time before.

  "There are certainly plenty of elk here," remarked Jack Mason to theother Jack.

  "Lots of them," was the reply. "Of course I don't claim to know muchabout the whole West, but I have never been in any place where elkseemed as plentiful as they are here. We may ride on to some at anytime, and for the present we don't need to hunt, because whenever wewant to kill something we can do it."

  It was only a little later that Jack's prediction was verified. As theyrode across the opening of a little valley they saw, less than twohundred yards away, several cow elk and heifers feeding at the edge ofthe brush near the timber.

  "There," said Jack, "what did I tell you?"

  "There they are," returned Jack Mason; "sure enough."

  Donald began to show some excitement.

  "Shouldn't we go up there and try to kill them?" he asked eagerly.

  "I think not," answered Jack. "We can get what we need going home. Ithink it will be better fun for us to ride on a little, and then climbup on some high peak and sit there and look over the country."

  "All right," said Donald, resignedly; "go ahead; but I'd like to remindyou of the story about the girl who was sent into the woods to get astraight stick, and kept rejecting pretty good sticks, hoping to getone still straighter, until finally, when she got to the outside shehad to take one that was crooked."

  "Ha! ha!" laughed Mason. "That's the way I've seen it done often withhunters. But let's follow Jack, Donald. He's the boss, and if we don'tget any meat, we'll put the blame on him, and make lots of fun of himwhen we get back to the ranch."

  "Let it be so," acquiesced Donald.

  Jack Danvers grinned.

  "I'll accept it," he said.

  For three quarters of an hour they rode on, constantly ascending by agentle slope. Two or three times they saw other elk near or far off,and more than once Jack was warned by Donald of the humiliation ofbeing laughed at when they got back to the ranch. But Jack only laughedand intimated that Donald was a British pilgrim.

  At last Jack dismounted at a little grove of pine timber, at the footof a rocky hill, steep and broken.

  "Let's stop here," he said, "and climb up to the top of this hill andsee what there is to look at. When we get up there, Donald can soothehis feelings with the British pipe he carries and the rest of us willstudy the landscape."

  The horses were tied, and a short scramble brought the men to thesharp peak of the hill--a rocky needle standing up several hundredfeet above the plateau. From this summit was had a wide view whichreally justified Jack. To the south and east they looked out over thebasin where the ranch was, though the distance was so great that therewas no detail. Behind them, to the north and west, was a stretch ofplateau broken by groves and lines of pines and aspens, and in thelittle parks among this timber were a number of animals, most of themelk, though there were some antelope. On the plateau between the basinfrom which they had come and the pinnacle on which they stood, in manylittle parks and openings were elk and in one of the larger parks aherd of antelope.

  "Why," exclaimed Jack Mason, "this is a regular elk pasture! It seemsto me the elk are thicker here than the cattle on the prairie, where wepassed along only a few days ago."

  "Well," replied Jack, "there are a great many elk up here, and veryfew people come here to hunt them. A few of the ranch people roundabout, when they need fresh meat, come here and kill it, and that isall the hunting that is done here. But I'm afraid the place is gettingtalked about. I heard last year of three or four settlers from downin Colorado who came up to the Hole, where most of the elk winter,and loaded up their wagons with their winter's meat. If three or fourpeople from Colorado did that last year, it's likely that a dozen ortwenty will do it this year, and two or three times that number theyear after. If they do that, that will be the end of the elk here; andI guess they'll do it."

  The boys sat there for an hour or two looking over this lovely mountainprospect, and then Jack Danvers stood up.

  "Well, I really hate to do it," he said, "but I suppose we've got to godown and kill something, and take it back to the ranch."

  They climbed down the steep hill and untied their horses.

  "Now," Jack cautioned the boys, "we ought to go more carefully. Donald,I expect you'd like to kill an elk, wouldn't you?"

  "You bet I would!"

  "All right then; let's go on and do it."

  On the return they took a valley a little to the west of the one theyhad followed up, and it was not very long before Jack halted and calleda council.

  "Now it seems to me that just beyond this point of timber we saw fromthe hill a little bunch of elk, and among them there's likely to be theanimal we want--a fat yearling. I don't suppose there'll be any troublein getting up to it--not half as much as there'd be in getting up to arange cow on foot--but let's go on. We can ride until we see the elk,and then get off to shoot."

  They entered the green timber in single file, Jack in the lead andJack Mason bringing up the rear with the pack animal. It was all verysimple. Before they reached the edge of the timber on the other side,Jack, who had been looking carefully, stopped and craned his neck toone side and then slipped off his horse and beckoned to Donald.

  GENTLING A WILD ONE.--_Page 44_ _Photo. by the Morris Art Studio, Chinook, Mont._]

  Very quietly the two proceeded on foot, and before they reached theedge of the timber Jack pointed out to Donald two or three elk lyingnear the opening, but he motioned to him to wait before shooting. Aftera little study Jack fixed on a fat yearling that lay slightly apartfrom the others, and told Donald to shoot it behind the shoulder andlow down. When the shot rang out all the elk sprang to their feet,except the one Donald had hit. This one partly raised itself and thenlay down again, and after a moment put its head on the ground. Theother elk stood about looking. The boys went back for their horses, andwhen they came out from the timber towa
rd the dead animal, the otherelk were hardly a hundred yards away and were walking up the littlepark without showing any alarm.

  To prepare the elk's carcass for transportation to camp and to load thegreater part of it on the pack horse took only a little time, and theboys went on toward home.

  Jack congratulated Donald on the shot.

  "It was a good one," he said, "and I believe you're an older hunterthan I thought. The way you killed that antelope the other day, andthis elk, makes me think that you've done a lot of hunting. Of course,I'm not much of a believer in this buck-fever that you read about inthe books, but it certainly is true that when pilgrims are shooting atgame for the first time, they don't always keep their heads. I reckon,though, that you've hunted more than I supposed, and I believe that youcan shoot all right, and maybe can beat some of us out here who thinkwe can shoot pretty steadily."