by Ben K. Green
This kind of business went on for about four or five days. One of these young mules would sneak in to get a bite of feed, then break and run out of the corral. I wouldn’t pay any attention to him, and the horses wouldn’t either. The sorrel mule got to where she would be there every time the gray mares were up in the morning for feed. But I never ran at any of these mules one single time, nor made any motion like I wanted them.
By the sixth morning I had got to where I was putting out lots of feed. I wanted them to stay in there and eat—and let the ones outside come look inside that rock fence. On the sixth morning every mule from that pasture, and my saddle horses, and my gray mares were all in the corrals eating. It was a little bit of a temptation to try to get around that rock fence and get that gate shut on these wild mules—but the wind wasn’t just right. If I had left the wagon and started around the pens, the mules could have winded me, and they would have broke and run out of that pen before I could have ever got to the gate. So I just tried to content myself that I was playing the game the right way, and that I’d better wait until I had a little more favorable weather to trap that bunch of wild young mules.
Mr. Cox had been by. He asked me if I was fishing or hunting or how did I plan on entertaining myself through the winter—if I wasn’t going to try to pen those mules. I told him that I wasn’t quite ready, that I hadn’t gotten well enough acquainted with the pasture yet, and that I wanted my saddle horses to be rested and ready before they made the wild run. I told him I thought I still had plenty of time to catch the mules and get home before Christmas.
He said that was all right with him. He just wondered how a man could be so unconcerned about catching wild stock—seeing that I had five saddle horses and hadn’t broke a sweat on them in the week’s time I had been camped there.
I told him that I was sure he was a business executive and very capable of running a huge land company, but that he evidently wasn’t in too close communion with a mule—that I didn’t believe his advice would be worth too much to me, nor his ideas about catching mules. He had known these mules longer than I had, and he hadn’t caught them either. I didn’t say this hateful; I just said it and smiled. He laughed and said he guessed that was right, but if I got around to the point where I thought I needed any help, he would try to find somebody that I could hire to help me catch the mules.
I asked him if he thought he was running short of grass or short of time. He answered: “Oh no, take all the time you want. I was just concerned. I hate to cheat a boy, and the way you’re doing your saddle horses are all going to the wild with the mules. Be sure, now, to keep a horse up, so you’ll have a way to leave.”
On the eighth morning there was a little norther blowing. I got up pretty early, and some of the horses were standing around in the pen. Beauty was nickering, the gray mares were nickering, and the sorrel mule had her head over the fence. By this time these young mules had all had a taste of feed, and they had gotten used to the idea that they were all going to get some feed every morning. They were all up there, but there wasn’t any feed in the pens. I came along with two great big buckets full of feed and just went in at the gate and poured the feed in the trough. Then I went down through the back corral and poured the feed out on the ground along the rock fence like I had been doing.
When the last mule walked up—and he was a great big nice horse mule, brown with a white nose and a white belly, big ears, and looking around at the world—he stood there at the gate watching me pour out feed. Everything else was eating. He could hear them eating, so I didn’t pay him any mind. I just crawled over the fence on the south side; but when I did, I stopped real still and stayed there, hunkered down low enough so that my head wouldn’t show. Directly I heard the horses kinda scuffle—and I knew that another one was trying to get up to the trough.
I didn’t want to make any noise. I started around the east side of that rock corral on my hands and knees. The wind was out of the northwest and blowing against me, and they couldn’t smell me. They were all busy eating; I had been a little late with their feed and they were all a little greedy and anxious. So when I thought I knew that this last mule was over there at the trough, I came right easy around this corral and got near to where the gate was.
I knew when I hit that gate I’d better hit it fast if I was ever going to get it closed. I’d already found out that when the gate went to, you had to tie it with a chain. There was also a big pole lying there that you could prop the gate with and brace it and keep it from flying back. So when I raised up, I did it right easy and got ahold of that gate. About that time the hinges squeaked—all these wild mules threw their heads up—and this one big horse mule charged at that gate just as I slammed it to. I slammed the brace pole against it to hold it; I didn’t have time to fasten the chain. I threw my hat over the fence right in that mule’s face and squalled at him. He boogered and fell back through himself, and I got the gate chained hard and fast.
This was the eighth day, and I hadn’t broke a sweat on a horse or throwed a shoe or rode myself down or got skinned up in the brush. I was running low on horse feed, but I had every mule and every mare and every saddle horse inside those big tall rock corrals with the gate shut.
I stood there and looked over the fence and bragged on myself awhile—and squalled at the stock and shook the gate and made them get back away from it. I made them understand it was fastened good and tight. I brought some feed sacks and tied around the planks on the gate. With those feed sacks flopping in the north wind, I knew they wouldn’t try to come through that gate. The rock fence was high enough all the way around that they weren’t going to try to jump it. I felt like if I left my saddle horses and the gray mares in there with these mules, they would quieten down better than if I got everything else out and just left them in there to get nervous and excite each other.
These mules had cost me nothing except twenty bushels of good red oats that I had bought from the man in Palo Pinto. It sure had been a nice, easy way to make money. Waiting hadn’t been too hard on me, because I had been riding into these little towns and visiting around and drinking cokes, going to the picture shows and taking on a little rest. Just riding one saddle horse a little bit every day, they were all about to get soft. It was time I was doing something with them.
I was a little afraid to get in there and go to roping these mules and trying to put halters on them the first day. I knew that they were already nervous and mad about those sacks a-waving in the breeze; so I just walked around through the corrals a little bit and let them run away from me—run up in the corners and snort and blow their noses and throw their heads up and pop their ears. I would just walk away and climb over the fence. I never did open the gate or unchain it, for fear one would come by me. I just climbed over that rock fence, one way or another.
I spent the whole day going back and forth and around through them, but I didn’t offer to take any horses out of there. I didn’t offer to rope one; I didn’t even carry a rope with me. I separated my horses from my mules that night, into two different pens. I fed my saddle horses good, fed the gray mares good, and just gave the mules a bite of feed—which didn’t hurt them. They had been full all their lives, and they were so nervous they wouldn’t eat much feed, anyhow.
Next morning when I got up it was awfully cold. Sure enough, that norther had finally gotten there. Mr. Cox drove up about the time I had my fire built up. He asked me if I was going to stay out there and freeze to death. I told him no, that I thought I’d leave that afternoon sometime.
“Without your mules?”
I said: “No, I don’t think I will. I got ’em in the lot.”
Well, you could have knocked him down with a feather duster. He wouldn’t believe me; I said: “Well, Mr. Cox, just step out of your car and walk right light and speak right soft and behave yourself—don’t scare my stock out of the corral, and I’ll be glad for you to ease up there and look over the fence.”
He was a well-dressed man, and he had an over
coat on, and it was flopping and a-popping and the wind was a-blowing. I said: “Now pull your hat down tight and take that overcoat off and lay it here on your car, because I don’t want my mules to see any fresh, man-made boogers.”
Sure enough he did what I told him, and he went there and looked over the fence. We came back to the fire and stood and visited a while. He told me it had been a pleasure to do business with me. He only hoped I would be able to catch these mules and put something on them to get them out of the pasture—that he would be glad to get rid of them and he wanted them to make me a profit.
I told him I appreciated his attitude, and in view of the fact that it would be advantageous to him and me both, would he send a couple of men over to help me rope and tie these mules down and put halters on them?
He said he felt like he owed me that much—that he just hadn’t realized what a good mule man I was. He would send two men over right after dinner, and they could help me all afternoon and the next day if I needed them. I told him I wouldn’t need them more than two or three hours, and that next day I would drive out of there and leave all his belongings and his gray mares.
About two o’clock that afternoon a couple of big old boys came over. They weren’t too bright, but they were stout. I roped the mules, then they would get on the rope with me. The mules would choke and bawl and carry on and try to get away—and then they would try to paw us, and then they would try to kick us. But there was a big snubbing post, that is, the gatepost between the two pens was a big heavy post. One by one we tied these mules to that post, and then I would get a rope around one hind foot. Riding a saddle horse, I would pull this foot out from under the mule. When he fell, one of these big old boys would jump on the mule’s head and get a halter on him while he was down. By the time he came up, we’d have the lariat rope off of his neck and he would quit choking—and he’d have that halter on with a drag rope tied to it. He would run all around the corral two or three times and step on that drag rope and throw himself and jerk his head and jerk his nose.
We got them all haltered and went back to camp, and the boys ate a bite with me and drank some coffee. They said they had better get home to their families before dark. We all shook hands and I thanked them, and they asked me about coming over the next morning and helping me to get out of the pasture with my mules. It was about three miles from where I was camped to the gate, but I told them they needn’t bother, I would make it all right. And they said: “We believe you will.”
So they went on home and left me with my mules all haltered—and me well satisfied with the day’s work.
These mules walked and tromped and stepped on those drag ropes all night. By morning the tops of their heads were kinda sore and their noses were sore—and when they would step on one of those ropes, they would give to it instead of running or pulling away from it.
That morning I saddled old Beauty—got the rigging on good and tight and tightened the breast harness. I would catch one of these mules and tie him to a post. Soon he would quit pulling on the post too much. Then I would catch another mule and pitch my rope over the mule that was tied to the post—draw them up pretty tight and tie them together at the necks with their own halter ropes. These halter ropes, or drag ropes, were plenty long, and I tied them up real close to where they couldn’t go around a tree with each other or get loose anyhow. That left two rope-ends long enough to drag on the ground, so the mules were still stepping on each other’s ropes and pulling on each other’s heads. But I had three pairs of wild mules tied in pairs.
I took three gentle saddle horses and—with lots of stout, soft ropes that I had been using for stake ropes at night on this trip—rigged them each one with a loose rope collar around the neck, down close to the shoulders. Then I tied another rope fairly tight around the body to make a surcingle, and tied short ropes from the collar rope to the surcingle.
I would crowd a pair of mules up in a corner, lead or push one of the gentle horses up close, get ahold of a mule drag rope, and tie it to the collar rope on the horse. With this collar rope tied back like it was to the surcingle rope, lots of strain was being taken to the surcingle, which went around the horse’s entire body. My saddle horses had everything done with them and knew how to pull from a saddle horn or a breast collar; with this rigging they could drag a pair of sore-headed mules easy.
Well, I had three spans of wild mules tied to three saddle horses and one saddle horse left to put my good heavy pack on. I had worked that night before to get my pack ready—my bedroll, cooking gear, extra ropes, and halters and stuff that I had to have—and I put it on this dun horse. He was a good big stout horse and used to carrying a pack, and I had my pack harness and my pack saddle on him good and tight. Old Beauty looked wise and ready when I got on her, opened the gate, and eased in and started the horses and mules all out in the open.
These mules tried to run, but these gentle saddle horses they were tied to would jerk them and pull them back. They couldn’t very well get away. I herded them out there on the glade by the corrals about thirty or forty minutes, maybe an hour. I had a bullwhip in my hand, and I would ride in to these mules that were pulling back and hit them with that bullwhip and drive them back with the others. Finally I had them bunched up pretty good. I never did fight my saddle horses that the mules were tied to, but I got them headed out toward the road. They ran crossways a few mesquite saplings and had to get unwound and start over, but by the time I got these mules to the road they were pretty well beat and had begun to line up and walk pretty good. They realized they were caught. The saddle horses had been kind of careful. Hadn’t any of them got hurt or pulled very bad, and they had been a controlling influence on the pairs of mules they were tied to.
I rode out in front and opened the gate and drove them all through the gate. I had my packing outfit that I had left Kansas with, before I bought any big teams. I had my saddle horses I started with. I had six head of good young mules worth $100 a head. I had my money in my pocket that I started with, and a profit besides.
I was only about two days from home, a week before Christmas. If it hadn’t been the dead of winter, I might have gone back to Kansas for more big work horses.
Traveling Mare
When I was an aspiring young cowman, still not quite twenty years old, I had gone to the brush in the fall to winter a large string of steers. My partner and I had several pastures leased, and we stocked them with steer yearlings and two-year-olds which we would winter on the range and sell fat off the grass in the late summer. This kind of operation took a lot of cowboyin’ which could not be done without some good, stout, hard, usable horses. They didn’t have to be pretty, but they had to savvy a lot of cow and be able to take a good deal of abuse from long, hard rides and bad weather.
This particular winter I had a black horse in my string that you wouldn’t fall in love with because of his appearance, and after you rode him all day you would almost hate him. His back was long, his shoulders were straight, his hindquarters were powerful, and he was a little jug-headed but deep in the body, with heavy bone and lots of muscle. The hair up and down the backs of his legs would well denote that his grandma had more than likely pulled a plow. One of the pastures the steers were in joined the Brazos River, and when the river was out of banks, the fences would be washed away and we would have steers in the bog. You could tie this old black horse to a steer and pull him out with the saddle horn and lariat rope without too much strain on the horse. He was also useful for lots of other heavy jobs.
This explanation will cause you to understand why I had endured this old black horse; but now it was spring, and the grass had begun to come in the draw, and the cattle had begun to fill up and shed a little of their winter hair; so I had it on my mind to get me a road horse, and the black was the one I thought needed trading the worst.
I saddled up bright and early one morning and rode into Cleburne, Texas (about twenty-five miles), by noon. Sterling Capps ran an old-fashioned livery stable about a block from
the public trading square, and he was always glad to put up a cowboy’s horse, gather news about the country he came from, and inform him on the most important happenings since he was last in town.
I rode into Sterling’s livery stable and got down off the black, about half churned to death from riding that short-trotting horse with all that power clear to town. As the man led him away to unsaddle and clean off, Sterling remarked about what a big, fine, stout horse I was riding. I wasn’t about to explain to my friend Mr. Capps that the horse was jarring the pigtails on the Chinamen on the other side of the earth every time he hit the ground; nor did I explain that the main purpose of my trip was to trade him for something with an easier movement and a more appealing general conformation.
I walked to the main part of town—it was a short distance or I wouldn’t have walked it—got a haircut and a shave, which after a long winter improved my appearance some, and went over to the hotel and ate a town-cooked dinner that was sure good after a winter’s siege of batchin’. When I moseyed back down to the livery stable, Sterling’s handyman had my horse brushed and curried—and to a man not too well versed on stride and ease of motion who was looking for a big stout horse, he would have made a striking picture.