FIVE THOUSAND MILES WITH

RANGE-CATTLE.

1

PART I.-BY RAIL.

A FEW weeks ago I undertook the charge of a train-load of range cattle, part of a consignment of some 940 head of beef steers which were being sent from a cattle-ranch in the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains in Southern Alberta to Montreal, and thence to England.

The herd were driven by easy stages across the prairie about 200 miles north-east from the ranch, to a point near the Canadian Pacific Railway where there was good grass and plenty of water; here a camp was made and thence the cattle were driven over, a train-load at a time, a distance of about eight miles, to the corrals alongside of the railroad. They were despatched in four trains, at intervals of about twenty-four hours.

I joined the manager with his dozen or so of cowboys at the camp, which consisted of a large tent and two or three waggons standing on a little knoll on the bald prairie. It was dusk when I got there, but a few hundred yards off the peaceful herd and the mute herders riding slowly round it were just visible. Two train-loads had already been despatched, so there were only about 470 head remaining.

The cook roused us next morning in the dark, and before the first sunrays struck the frosty grass, breakfast had been disposed of, the horse herd driven in, saddle-horses roped and saddled, and the hands were riding off to the herd to cut out and drive over to the railroad the 227 head to be despatched that day.

Good cow-hands work their cattle with a wonderful absence of fuss and noise, and it was a pretty thing to see the way in which these steers were separated from their companions and moved off towards the railroad-so quietly that they were well on their way and far from their friends before the most suspicious of them grasped the idea that they were not moving merely of their own volition. This gentleness and delicacy of treatment is of course a matter of expediency a steer, or, worse still, an old cow, that gets on the fight will quickly impart its excitement to its companions, and may cause endless trouble and extra work.

The yards, or corrals, into which the cattle had to be driven before they could be entrained were stoutly built of timber, perhaps sixty yards square, opening to the prairie by wide gates into which long wings of fencing converged.

As the cattle neared these yards, perhaps many a one of them vaguely recalled the only occasion of his having been driven into such a place before: then he had cantered trustfully in by his mother's side, along with a great company of cows and calves; he had soon become aware that he was being shadowed through that restless, bellowing mob by a mounted man, from whom there presently sprang a whirling rope, in which the poor victim's legs became entangled, and by which he was dragged through the dust into the clutches of three fiends in human shape, one of whom knelt on his neck, while another held his hind legs, and the third slit his ears, slashed his dewlap, and otherwise mutilated him; while a fourth had indelibly burnt the occasion on his memory, and the owner's initials on his hide, with a red-hot, hissing branding-iron. For this or some other reason the nearer we approached the corrals the more troublesome the cattle became. At last the foremost stopped short; those behind, pressed on by a dozen riders, and unable to push through the front ranks, gave a little to one side, the leaders swinging off the opposite way, and in a moment the whole 227 were in full operation of that curious performance called 'milling '—moving round like a wheel in a solid mass, increasing their pace each instant, and pressing inwards always more closely. One tries to stop them and make them break towards the desired point, but it is lost labour: one may just as well sit still and rest one's horse. Presently, the pace still increasing, one beast is flung out of the living whirlpool, of course heading straight for the open prairie; then two or three, then a dozen follow him at full gallop. Impossible to stop them: they will roll over any one who is rash enough to try it, with but one preliminary shake of head or brandishment of tail: the only thing to be done is to let them all break back, then round them up and try again. Before bringing them up a second time, two or three head of tame cattle belonging to the railroad men are driven in front of the gateway to act as decoys, and not without effect: we get our steers well up within the wing fences without much trouble; then comes the pause. We hurry from side to side of the rear, pushing the stragglers into the main body, that are now almost at a standstill; we drive our horses right up among the hindmost steers, kicking them and slapping them with our hats. At last one tenderfoot' of the party does the fatal thing, giving vent to a wild and unexpected yell: the wavering leaders at once swing off again, the milling is repeated as before, and with the same result; this time the cattle gallop fully a mile before we head them off. The foreman during this second attempt had been a sight to see: he was justly proud of the condition of his

cattle, and was most anxious to put them on the train as little. excited as possible. As the psychic moment approached, and the leaders of the band hesitated whether they would enter the fatal corral or stay outside, 'Pat' had been one jingling mass of suppressed excitement from the tips of his waxed moustachios to the rowels of his silvered spurs: and now as the cattle 'went to milling' for the second time, he had for a moment blood in his eye if ever it was there; yet he contained his wrath like a hero, only remarking incidentally, as he led the gallop back to head off the fugitives, that 'hollerin' was h-ll.'

Nothing so excites range cattle as the human voice, unless it be the human figure on foot. Your genuine cowboy never shouts at his cattle. It is permissible to curse cattle, but this should be done in a conversational tone of voice, and you must depend for your effect, not upon noise, but upon a nice taste in profanity.

At the third attempt the cattle were corralled, but were in such a heated condition that it was thought advisable to allow them to rest for two hours before beginning to load into the cars.

Canadian cattle-cars are about twice the size of ours; they are always roofed in, and the sides are boarded horizontally, narrow spaces being left between the boards. A bed of about three inches of gravel is laid over the floor of each car to afford foothold. My train comprised seven cars containing seventeen head each, and six containing eighteen each. It is the opinion of those who know that cattle cannot be too tightly packed for a railway journey: the closer they stand the less are they able to fight, and the more reluctant they are to lie down my own opinion is that at the beginning of such a journey as ours it was advisable to pack them as tightly as possible, but that toward the end of the trip, when they had become used to their environment, if there had been only twelve or fourteen head in each car, those that lay might have been safely allowed to remain lying and would have been very much helped by doing so.

The operation of loading is in this wise. The necessary number to fill a car are cut out from the main body and driven through a gate into an intermediate passage, a resolute man being perched on the outer corner of the gate ready by a vigorous kick to swing it to and keep it to as the last beast passes; the car-load are then driven through into a smaller yard in shape of a triangle, the apex ending in an inclined plane leading up to the floor of the car. It is the nature of these cattle to be very slow to grasp an idea except by contagion, so that it is almost impossible to suggest to seventeen out of two hundred head that they should go through a certain gate, without finding that as soon as one has passed the entire outfit are bent on following. Sometimes fifteen or sixteen head would be run out into the passage easily enough; then the gate would have to be shut to prevent an ugly rush following them, being again opened

when the rush was checked, to allow the remaining two or three to pass. In the meantime the first detachment, having galloped wildly up the passage, and having found no outlet to their beloved prairie, would be coming back on the dead jump to rejoin their comrades, flinging wide the half-opened gate, cannoning the laggards who would be dallying near it, and starting a game of general post for the entire herd round the corral.

As the blood of both men and beasts grew heated, the scene became more magnificent but less businesslike: the steers began to get wicked, and to chase their persecutors; those of the men who were on foot, demoralised, perhaps, by the novelty of working dismounted, grew reckless and intent rather on emulating each other's escapades than on the business in hand, with the result that when the journey began most of the cattle were in a fever of excitement, covered with sweat, with lolling tongues and heaving flanks.

The cars are closed by a sliding door on the outside, while on the inside there is the bull-bar'-a thick, narrow plank of ash hung on a pivot on one side of the doorway, and secured by being swung up and run through a staple on the opposite side, thus affording a ready means of temporarily securing the contents of the car while the sliding door with its more elaborate adjustments is being made fast. The cattle were very shy of ascending through the sloping shoot into the car, but as soon as one could be driven a little way up, the whole party of seventeen or eighteen would rush madly after him, sometimes quite jamming themselves in the narrow end of the passage, often knocking down and trampling over each other; and, most painful to see, two beasts would often half-enter the car together and jam themselves in the doorway, straining and scraping themselves pitiably, and at last heaving themselves by a supreme effort past the door-frames, scraping the skin off their hip-bones as they went. It was of course impossible to put up the bull-bar until the last of the car-load was fairly inside; and it would often happen that, before one could get the bar clear from the pressure of the beasts in the car and swing it into its staple, one of the steers would find his head towards the doorway, and make a frantic leap through it and down the shoot, often falling and sliding anyhow most of the distance, followed by the rest of the contents of the car, which, after having taken half an hour to load, would thus be emptied in half a minute.

The adjustment of the bull-bar is an operation requiring nerve and discretion-one cannot get at it except by standing right in the doorway, and from what I have just said it will be seen that one has to keep a look-out for any steer heading towards one, and not the less has one to beware of any tails turned the same way. The Western expression 'to kick like a bay steer' is a well-earned tribute to the kicking powers of all range steers alike, whether bay or any other colour-indeed, I found it to be a necessary part of the drill, VOL. XXIX.-No. 170. Y Y

when putting up the bull-bar, to grasp the tail of any steer commanding a free kick out, and twist it over his back-not wrenching it, but having it, as it were, just 'on the wrench': thus threatened, the maddest steer will not dare to move a muscle, and, using him as a shield, one can adjust the bull-bar at one's ease.

At last my train was loaded and my responsibilities began. I had under me three assistants, who were working their passage without receiving pay. There always are plenty of men in the Far West ready to accomplish the long and costly journey to the seaboard on these terms. My men were, fortunately for me, Englishmen, and of gentle birth, although very wild and woolly in appearance, and they worked at our somewhat harassing job with all the ungrumbling zeal peculiar to their tribe.

I had instructions from the manager of the ranch to unload at four specified points, where hay and accommodation in the yards had been bespoken; the duration of our stay was nominally at my discretion, but was practically controlled by the necessity of keeping clear of the train which had started the day before, and of that which was to follow me next day.

My men and I accordingly collected our blankets and valises, our prod-poles, and our lanterns, and as soon as we had got into the caboose, with our belongings, the train started.

A caboose-every one may not know it-is a kind of guard's van and gipsy van combined. It is inhabited normally by a conductor (guard, as we should say) and a brakesman. It has a door at each end, and is fitted with two broad benches on each side of a central gangway, a small stove, a sink, and a reservoir intended to contain, and sometimes containing, water. At the after end the roof of the caboose is raised, and below this excrescence, which is fitted with sliding windows, are platforms, one on each side of the central gangway, on which sit the conductor and brakesman, and whence they command a view of the train and the line ahead of it. It is the function of the brakesman from time to time to pass through the sliding windows, in obedience to whistles from the engine, and, running along the roofs of the cars forming the train, to apply or release the brakes with which each is fitted. There is a narrow, level pathway along the apex of every car, and at each end of this pathway is a hand-wheel by which the brakes are actuated. A caboose also accommodates chance passengers and people like ourselves having charge of stock on the train.

For some unexplained reason a caboose travels for ever backwards and forwards over the same section of the line, and on arriving at the end of its section it is detached and deserted by its functionaries until the return journey is begun. Thus, about every 130 miles, the average length of a section, whether by night or day, we had to bundle out of our unabiding dwelling-place, with our belongings, and find its successor as best we could, perhaps hundreds of yards