Henty George Alfred
Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

This was the regular form of challenge among the cow-boys. Sometimes after a quarrel, in which one had got the drop of the other, and the latter had been obliged to "take back" what he had said, mutual friends would interfere; and if the row had taken place when one or other of the men had been drinking, or when there was no previous malice or dislike between the men, the matter would be made up and things go on as before. If, however, the quarrel had been a deliberate one, and one or other considered himself still aggrieved, he would take his discharge and leave the camp on the following morning, giving his antagonist notice that he should shoot at sight when they next met, and whether the meeting was alone on the plains, in a drinking saloon, or in a street, both parties would draw and fire the moment their eyes fell on each other.

That Flash Bill should have been forced to take back his words by this young hand of the ranch was a matter of the deepest astonishment to the camp, and Hugh found himself quite a popular character, for Flash Bill had made himself very obnoxious; and with the exception of two or three men of his own stamp in the outfit, the men of that body were more pleased than anyone else that the bully had had to leave. None were more astonished than the men of the other outfits of the ranche. They had heard Hugh addressed as Lightning; but curiosity is not a cow-boy failing, and few had given a thought as to how he had come by the appellation. One or two had asked the question, but Broncho Harry had, the night before his party started to the round-up, said to the others, "Look here, boys. If anyone asks how Lightning Hugh came by his name, don't you give him away. They will larn one of these days, and it will be as good as a theyater when he does that gun trick of his. So keep it dark from the other boys."

The few questions asked, therefore, had been met with a laugh.

"It is a sort of joke of ours," Broncho Harry had said to one of the questioners. "You will see one of these days why it fits him."

Hugh was not sorry when the time came for his outfit to start. They had charge of a herd of eight or nine thousand animals all belonging to the. It was customary for most of the ranches to drive their own cattle, after a round-up, towards the neighbourhood of their station for the convenience of cutting out the steers that were to be sent down to market, or herds, principally of cows and calves, for purchasers who intended to establish ranches in the still unoccupied territory in New Mexico, Colorado, Dakota, and Montana. Some of these herds would have thousands of miles to travel, and be many months upon the journey. Many of the cow-boys looked forward to taking service with these herds, and trying life under new conditions in the northern territories.

When the beef herds, and such cow herds as the manager of the ranche wished to sell, had been picked out and sent off, the rest of the cattle would be free to wander anywhere they liked over the whole country until they were again swept together for the round-up, unless other sales were effected in the meantime, in which case parties of cow-boys would go out to cut out and drive in the number required. The number of cattle collected at the rounds-up was enormous, many of the ranches owning from forty to eighty thousand cattle. A considerable number were not driven in at the round-up, as the greater portion of the beef-cattle, which had already been branded, were cut out and left behind by the various outfits, and only the cows and calves, with a few bulls to serve as leaders, were driven in. Nevertheless, at these great rounds-up in Texas, the number of the animals collected mounted up to between two and three hundred thousand.

Two-thirds of the work was over when No. 2 outfit of the ranche started.

"Well, I am glad that is over, Bill," Hugh said, as they halted at the end of the first day's march.

"I am not sorry," Bill Royce replied; "it is desperate hard work. All day at the stock-yard, and half one's time at night on guard with the herds, is a little too much for anyone."

"Yes, it has been hard work," Hugh said; "but I don't think I meant that so much as that it was not so pleasant in other ways as usual. The men are too tired to talk or sing of an evening. One breakfasted, or rather swallowed one's food half asleep before daylight, took one's dinner standing while at work, and was too tired to enjoy one's supper."

"I reckon it has been a good round-up," Broncho Harry said. "There have been only four men killed by the cattle, and there haven't been more than five or six shooting scrapes. Let me think! yes, only five men have been shot."

"That is five too many, Broncho," Hugh said.

"Well, that is so in one way, Hugh; but you see we should never get on out here without shooting."

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Because we are an all-fired rough lot out here. There ain't no law, and no sheriffs, and no police, and no troops. How in thunder would you keep order if it weren't for the six-shooter? Thar would be no peace, and the men would be always quarrelling and wrangling. How would you work it anyhow? It is just because a quarrel means a shooting scrape that men don't quarrel, and that every one keeps a civil tongue in his head. There ain't nowhere in the world where there is so little quarrelling as out here on the plains. You see, if we didn't all carry six-shooters, and were ready to use them, the bad-tempered men, and the hard men, would have it their own way. Big fellows like you would be able to bully little fellows like me. We should get all the bad men from the towns whenever they found the settlements too hot for them. We should have murderers, and gamblers, and horse-thieves coming and mixing themselves up with us. I tell you, Hugh, that without the revolver there would be no living out here. No, sirree, the six-shooter puts us all on a level, and each man has got to respect another. I don't say as there ain't a lot wiped out every year, because there is; but I say that it is better so than it would be without it. When these plains get settled up, and the grangers have their farms on them, and the great cattle ranches go, and you get sheriffs, and judges, and all that, the six-shooter will go too, but you can't do without it till then. The revolver is our sheriff, and judge, and executioner all rolled in one. No one who is quiet and peaceable has got much occasion to use it."

"I nearly had to use it the other day, Broncho, and I reckon I am quiet and peaceable."

"Waal, I don't altogether know about that, Hugh. I don't say as you want to quarrel, quite the contrary, but you made up your mind before you came here that if you got into trouble you were going to fight, and you practised and practised until you got so quick that you are sure you can get the drop on anyone you get into a muss with. So though you don't want to get in a quarrel, if anyone wants to quarrel with you you are ready to take him up. Now if it hadn't been so there wouldn't have been any shooting-irons out the other night. Flash Bill came over to get up a quarrel. He was pretty well bound to get up a quarrel with some one, but if you had been a downright peaceable chap he could not have got up a quarrel with you. If you had said quietly, when he kinder said as how you hadn't come by that horse honest, that Bill here had been with you when you bought him, and that you got a document in your pocket, signed by a sheriff and a judge, to prove that you had paid for it, there would have been no words with you. I don't say as Flash Bill, who was just spoiling for a fight, wouldn't have gone at somebody else. Likely enough he would have gone at me. Waal, if I had been a quiet and peaceable chap I should have weakened too, and so it would have gone on until he got hold of somebody as wasn't going to weaken to no one, and then the trouble would have begun. I don't say as this is the place for your downright peaceable man, but I say if such a one comes here he can manage to go through without mixing himself up in shooting scrapes."

"But in that way a man like Flash Bill, let us say, who is known to be ready to use his pistol, might bully a whole camp."

"Yas, if they wur all peaceable people; but then, you see, they ain't. This sort of life ain't good for peaceable people. We take our chances pretty well every day of getting our necks broke one way or another, and when that is so one don't think much more of the chance of being shot than of other chances. Besides, a man ain't allowed to carry on too bad. If he forces a fight on another and shoots him, shoots him fair, mind you, the boys get together and say this can't go on; and that man is told to git, and when he is told that he has got to, if he don't he knows what he has got to expect. No, sirree, I don't say as everything out in the plains is just arranged as it might be in New York; but I say that, take the life as it is, I don't see as it could be arranged better. There was a chap out here for a bit as had read up no end of books, and he said it was just the same sort of thing way back in Europe, when every man carried his sword by his side and was always fighting duels, till at last the kings got strong enough to make laws to put it down and managed things without it; and that's the way it will be in this country. Once the law is strong enough to punish bad men, and make it so that there ain't no occasion for a fellow to carry about a six-shooter to protect his life, then the six-shooter will go. But that won't be for a long time yet. Why, if it wasn't for us cow-boys, there wouldn't be no living in the border settlements. The horse-thieves and the outlaws would just rampage about as they pleased, and who would follow them out on the plains and into the mountains? But they know we won't have them out here, and that there would be no more marcy shown to them if they fell into our hands than there would be to a rattler. Then, again, who is it keeps the Injuns in order? Do you think it is Uncle Sam's troops? Why, the Red-skins just laugh at them. It's the cow-boys."

"It ain't so long ago," Long Tom put in, "as a boss commissioner came out to talk with the natives, and make them presents, and get them to live peaceful. People out in the east, who don't know nothing about Injuns, are always doing some foolish thing like that. The big chief he listens to the commissioner, and when he has done talking to him, and asks what presents he should like, the chief said as the thing that would most tickle him would be half a dozen cannons with plenty of ammunition."

"'But,' says the commissioner, 'we can't give you cannon to fight our troops with.'

"'Troops!' says the chief; 'who cares about the troops? We can just drive them whenever we like. We want the cannon to fight the cow-boys.'

"That chief knew what was what. It is the cow-boys as keep back the Red-skins, it's the cow-boys as prevent these plains getting filled up with outlaws and horse-thieves, and the cow-boys can do it 'cause each man has got six lives pretty sartin at his belt, and as many more as he has time to slip in fresh cartridges for; and because we don't place much valley on our lives, seeing as we risk them every day. We know they ain't likely to be long anyhow. What with death among the herds, shooting scrapes, broken limbs, and one thing and another, and the work which wears out the strongest in a few years, a cow-boy's life is bound to be a short one. You won't meet one in ten who is over thirty. It ain't like other jobs. We don't go away and take up with another trade. What should we be fit for? A man that has lived on horseback, and spent his life galloping over the plains, what is he going to do when he ain't no longer fit for this work? He ain't going to hoe a corn-patch or wear a biled shirt and work in a store. He ain't going to turn lawyer, or set up to make boots or breeches. No, sirree. He knows as ten years is about as much as he can reckon on if his chances are good, and that being so, he don't hold nothing particular to his life. We ain't got no wives and no children. We works hard for our money, and when we gets it we spend it mostly in a spree. We are ready to share it with any mate as comes along hard up. It might be better, and it might be worse. Anyway, I don't see no chance of changing it as long as there is room out west for cattle ranches. Another hundred years and the grangers will have got the land and the cow-boys will be gone, but it will last our time anyhow."

Hugh was much struck with this estimate of a cow-boy's life by one of themselves, but on thinking it over he saw that it was a true one. These men were the adventurous spirits of the United States. Had they been born in England they would have probably either enlisted or run away as boys and gone to sea. They were men to whom a life of action was a necessity. Their life resembled rather that of the Arab or the Red Indian than that of civilized men. Their senses had become preternaturally acute; their eyesight was wonderful. They could hear the slightest sound, and pronounce unhesitatingly how it was caused. There was not an ounce of unnecessary flesh upon them. Their muscles seemed to have hardened into whip-cord.

They were capable of standing the most prolonged fatigue and hardship, and just as a wild stag will run for a considerable distance after receiving a wound that would be instantly fatal to a domestic animal, these men could, as he had seen for himself, and still more, as he had heard many anecdotes to prove, sustain wounds and injuries of the most terrible kind and yet survive, seeming, in many cases, almost insensible to pain. They were, in fact, a race apart, and had very many good qualities and comparatively few bad ones. They were, indeed, as Long Tom had said, reckless of their lives, and they spent their earnings in foolish dissipation. But they knew of no better way. The little border-towns or Mexican villages they frequented offered no other amusements, and except for clothes and ammunition for their pistols they had literally no other need for their money.

Nothing could exceed the kindness with which they nursed each other in illness or their generosity to men in distress. They were devoted to the interests of their employers, undergoing, as a matter of course, the most prolonged and most prodigious exertions. They were frank, good-tempered, and kindly in their intercourse with each other, as addicted to practical jokes as so many school-boys, and joining as heartily in the laugh when they happened to be the victims as when they were the perpetrators of the joke. Their code of honour was perhaps a primitive one, but they lived up to it strictly, and in spite of its hardships and its dangers there was an irresistible fascination in the wild life that they led.

CHAPTER XI.
A FIRE ON THE PLAINS

AFTER the hard work at the round-up the journey north seemed almost a holiday. Of an evening the cook's accordion was again brought out, and the men sang and, to Hugh's amusement, danced. He thought the proposal was a joke when it was first made, but he soon saw that it was quite serious. He had declined to take part in it, saying that he had never danced since he was a little boy; but it was as much as he could do to restrain his laughter, upon seeing the gravity with which eight of the cow-boys went through a quadrille to the music of the accordion. Then followed waltzes, and then some Mexican dances, the entertainment being kept up for a couple of hours.

Dancing, indeed, is one of the favourite amusements of cow-boys, and there being no females to dance with they dance with each other, and are so accustomed to do so that it comes to them as naturally as if dancing with women. When, however, they are camped within thirty or forty miles of a Mexican village, it is no unusual thing for a party of half a dozen to ride over to it. Perhaps one has preceded them to make the arrangements. These are simple. The Mexicans are very musical, and there is not a village where men capable of playing upon the mandoline, and perhaps other instruments, cannot be found. An arrangement is made with these and with the landlord of the little inn.

The preparations are not expensive – spirits for the men and a supply of cakes and syrups for the women. The news spreads like lightning, and in the evening Mexican villagers, male and female, in their best attire, from miles round arrive, some in carts and some on horseback. The music strikes up, and the dance is kept up until morning. Occasionally these entertainments end with a fray, arising generally from the jealousy of some young Mexican at the complacency with which his sweetheart receives the attentions of a cow-boy admirer. But these are quite the exceptions. The Mexicans know that their hosts will be off in the morning, and that they shall probably never see them again, and they therefore put up philosophically with the temporary inconstancy of the damsels of their village.

To the Mexican girls, indeed, these cow-boys are veritable heroes. They have heard endless tales of their courage. They know that the Indians, who hold their countrymen in absolute contempt, fear to meet these terrible herdsmen. The careless way in which they spend their money, their readiness to bestow their gorgeous silk handkerchiefs, their really handsome and valuable sashes, or the gold cord of their hats, upon their favourite partner for the evening, fills them with admiration. They know, too, that when, as occasionally happens, a cow-boy does marry a Mexican girl, and settles down upon some little ranche among them, the lot of his wife is greatly easier than that of those who marry Mexicans, and that she will be treated with an amount of consideration and courtesy undreamt of by the Mexican peasant, who, although an humble adorer before marriage, is a despotic master afterwards. It is not surprising, then, that upon occasions like these the cow-boy hosts have a monopoly of the prettiest girls at the ball.

Round the camp fires in the evening Hugh heard many tales of such evenings spent in the villages of New Mexico.

"I had a very narrow escape once," a cow-boy known as Straight Charley said. "There were six of us went up together to a Mexican village, and we gave a first-rate hop. There was a big crowd there, find things went on well until there was a muss between one of our fellows and a Mexican. Jake was rather a hard man, and we hadn't much fancied his being of our party, for he was fonder of drink than of dancing, and was quarrelsome when the drink was in him. I don't know how the muss began, for I was dancing with as pretty a little Mexican girl as I ever came across. However, I haven't any doubt as Jake was in the wrong. The first I knowed about it was that the music stopped, and then I heard loud voices. I saw a knife flash, and dropped my partner, and was going to run in to stop it, but I hadn't more than thought about it when there was the crack of a pistol. Then knives were out all round, and there was a pretty lively fight.

"It seemed, as I heard afterwards, that when Jake shot the Mexican – and I don't say he had no right to do so when the Mexican had drawn his knife first, for if he had not shot he would have been killed himself – two or three other Mexicans went for him, and, as a matter of course, two of our fellows went for the Mexicans. If they hadn't been all mixed up together the six of us could have cleared the hull lot out, but mixed up like that, and with girls about, our fellows hadn't much show. I was just breaking through to take a hand in the game, when a fellow who had been looking pretty sour at me for some time, jumped on my back like a wild cat, so down I went, and in half a minute my legs and arms were tied tight with their sashes. I didn't try to struggle after I had fallen, for I knew well enough that our fellows had got the worst of it.

"When matters cleared up a bit I found that four Mexicans had been killed, and five or six others pretty badly hurt. Jake and another of our boys were dead; two others had broke out, run to their horses, and ridden away. Another of the boys had been taken prisoner, but he had got two or three knife-cuts before he was knocked down. There was a big hubbub for some time, as you may guess, and then they told us we should be taken to the town in the morning. Well, they took off the sashes, and marched us away to a house at the end of the village. It was a plank house, and built in the same fashion as their adobe huts, with one room behind the other. Of course they had taken our six-shooters and knives away from us, and they shoved us into the inner room, and then a dozen of them sat down to play cards and keep watch in the other.

"The place had been built as a sort of lock-up, and there were heavy bars to the window, just as you see in a good many Mexican houses. They had left our legs free, but had put some ropes round our arms; but we knew that we could shift them easy enough. The Mexicans had shut the door between the two rooms, but we could hear their talk through it, and we heard that, though the thing had been brought on by Jake, there would have been a muss anyhow sooner or later. Two white men had come into the village a fortnight before; they were dressed like cow-boys, but I reckon they were horse-stealers or outlaws, anyhow they had kicked up a row and shot three men, and rode away, and the Mexicans had seemed to make up their minds that they would take revenge on the next party that came in, whoever they were.

"Well, things looked pretty bad for us. If we had once got inside one of their prisons, the Mexican judges would have made short work of us. The greasers would, of course, have sworn that we had begun the row, and shot down four or five of their people without the least cause, and it would have been a case of hanging, as sure as a gun; so Dave and I agreed that we had got to git somehow. It wur no use talking of fighting, for there was a dozen fellows in the next room, and they had all got their guns along with them. We hadn't got our knives, and there was no chance of cutting our way out. We were talking it over when someone said, 'Are you there, Charley?' at the window. It was one of the boys who had got away. You bet I was there pretty sharp.

"'Here I am, Ginger,' I said. 'How goes it?' 'Pretty bad,' he said; 'Jeffries is cut pretty near to pieces, and I am wounded in half-a-dozen places, and can scarce crawl. Jeffries is with the horses a mile away. He is too bad to stand. I made a shift to crawl back to see what had become of you. I have been creeping round, and heard the two of you were shut up here, and that you was going to be taken off to-morrow, and would be hung, sure, so I came round to see what could be done; here is my six-shooter if it will be any good to you.' 'No, that won't be any good,' I said; 'there are twelve of them, and they have all got guns; but give me your knife; these planks are pretty thick, but we can cut our way through.' 'I haven't got it,' says Ginger; 'it was knocked out of my belt in the fight, and, worse luck, Jeffries has lost his too. A fellow got hold of his wrist, so he couldn't use his pistol, and he drew his knife, and he was fighting with it, when he got a slice across his fingers which pretty nigh cut them off, and he dropped his knife, and, as luck would have it, just wrenched himself free and bolted.'

"'Well, we must do what we can,' I said; 'but it is hard luck on us. Look here, Ginger, you bring the two horses up to that clump of trees over there; Dave is pretty badly cut about, and cannot run far, but he can make a shift to get over there. If we don't come by an hour before daylight it ain't no use your waiting no longer; you go and pick up Jeffries, and make tracks; but I reckon that somehow we shall manage to come.' 'All right!' says he, and went. 'Now, Dave,' I said, 'you turn over and let me get my teeth at your knots, it is hard if I don't manage to undo them.'

"Sure enough, in five minutes I had loosed a knot, and then the rest was easy. Dave untied me, and we were free so far. 'What next?' says Dave. 'We will have a look round,' says I. Luckily there was a moon, and there was plenty of light to see what was in the room. There was some bits of furniture and bedding, just as they had been left by the people they had turned out to make room for us, but nothing that I could find as would help us to cut our way out. 'Now, Dave,' says I, 'you get to that corner and I will get to this, and just shove against the planks, and see if we can't push the hull side of this shanty out.' Well, it wur too strong for us. It was made of rough boards, pretty strongly nailed. I thought it gave a little, but nothing as would be any good. 'If we could throw ourselves against it both together it might go,' I said; 'but it mightn't, and if it didn't we should have them inside in a moment, and there would be an end to it. What do you say to our burning ourselves out, Dave?'

"'How are we to do that, Charley?' he said. 'Well, I have got my box of matches in my boot, and I suppose you have yours too. Let us pile up some of these wooden things against the two corners; there is plenty of straw in this bed. Before we begin we will hang one of these blankets over the doorway so as to keep the smoke from going through the cracks. I reckon they are all smoking in there, and they won't smell it very quick.' So we made a pile, moving as quiet as we could, standing still when they were not talking much in the next room, and moving whenever they made a row, which was pretty often. 'These things are as dry as chips,' I said, 'and what smoke there is will mostly go out through the window, but I expect there will be more than we shall like. Here is a big pitcher of water, we will soak these two blankets, and then lie down close to the floor; you cover your head over with one, and I will do it with the other. Now, then!'

"We lit a couple of matches and touched off the straw, and in half a minute there was a blaze up to the roof. Then we lay down by the other wall one on each side of the door, and waited. In about two minutes there was a shout in the next room and a rush, then the door was flung open and the blanket torn down, and such a yelling and cussing as you never heard. The smoke was pretty bad where we was lying, and I reckon that up higher it was as thick as a wall. 'The cursed Americans have lighted the house and smothered themselves,' one of them shouted. Then they rushed out, coughing and choking, and we heard them shouting for water, and there wur as much row as if the village had been attacked by Injuns.

"We waited another three or four minutes, and then Dave shouted, 'I can't stand this no longer.' I had hoped they would have left the outer door open, and that we could have got out that way, but we had heard it shut. I expect someone more cute than the rest suspected we wur inside biding our time. 'Take a long breath, Dave,' says I, 'and don't breathe again until you are out; now jump up and join me.' We joined hands and made a run, and threw ourselves against one corner of the end of the hut. Several of the planks fell, and a couple of kicks sent the rest out, then off we bolted.

"There wur a yell outside, for by this time half the village were there. Luckily the men with guns was mostly round by the door, and when the yells fetched them there was too many women and children about for them to shoot. We went straight on, as you may guess, and we were half-way to the woods before the shooting began, and it wur pretty wild at that. Dave gave out afore he got to the trees, and I had to carry him.

"'This way,' Ginger shouted. I lifted Dave on to a horse, and jumped up behind him, and we wur off just as the Mexicans came running up. After that it wur easy enough. We rode to where Jeffries had been left, got him on to Ginger's horse, and made tracks for the camp. Jeffries died next day, but Dave got over it. That wur a pretty near touch, I reckon."

"It was indeed," Hugh said. "That was a very lucky idea of yours of burning out the corners of the house."

"Some of them Mexicans is cusses," another cow-boy put in. "I had a smart affair with them in one of their villages last year. I had rid in with Baltimore Rube. We had been searching some of the gullies for cows, and had run short of sugar and tea. Waal, I was on a young broncho I had only roped two days before, and the critter wur as wild as could be. When we rode in, a lot of them brutes of dogs that swarms almost as thick as their fleas in all these Mexican villages, came barking round, while one big brute in particular made as if he would pin my broncho by the nose, and the pony plunged and kicked till I thought he would have me off. There was a lot of their men standing at their doors smoking, for it wur late in the afternoon, and they wur all back from what they called work. I shouted to them to call their dogs off, but they just laughed and jeered, so I did the only thing as there was to do, just pulled out my six-shooter and shot the dog. Waal, if it had been a man there could not have been a worse sort of row. The Mexicans ran into their houses just as quick as a lot of prairie-dogs when they scent danger, and in a moment were back with their guns, and began to blaze away. Waal, naturally, our dander riz, a bullet chipped the bark off my cheek, and by the way my broncho jumped I knew one had hit him, so Baltimore and I blazed away in return, and neither of us didn't shoot to miss, you bet. We just emptied our six-shooters, and then rode for it.

"Baltimore got a shot in his shoulder. I had one in the leg, and there was two in the saddle. We talked it over and agreed it wur best to say nothing about it. Them Mexicans will swear black is white, and when there is a whole village swearing one way, and only two men swearing the other way, them two has got but a poor show of being believed. So we concluded to leave those parts altogether, and we rode a hundred and fifty miles in the next two days, and then camped for a week till our wounds healed up a bit.