Bat Wing Bowles

"Say, pardner," said one, "you sure can jump the fences! Where'd you learn that – back at Coney Island?"

"Coney Island nothin'!" retorted another. "W'y, Joe, you show your ignorance! This gentleman is from England – can't you see him ride?"

"Well, I knowed all along he was goin' to ride Wa-ha-lote," observed a third, oracularly. "I could tell by the way he walked up to him. How's he goin', stranger – make a pretty good buggy-horse, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, indeed!" beamed Bowles. "That is, I presume he would. He is one of the best gaited animals I ever rode. A perfect riding horse! Really, I can't remember when I've enjoyed such a glorious gallop!"

They crowded around him then, in an anxious, attentive cluster, still jabbing their horses with the spurs to keep up with Henry Lee but salting away his naive remarks for future reference.

Henry Lee was just making some little gathers near the home ranch while he waited for his neighbors to send in their stray men for the big round-up, and as the conversation rattled on in the rear he headed straight for a range of hills to the south. An hour of hard riding followed, and then, as they began to encounter cattle, he told off men by ones and twos to drive them in to the cutting ground. Hardy Atkins took another bunch of men and rode for a distant point, and soon the whole outfit was strung out in a great circle that closed in slowly upon a lonely windmill that stood at the base of the hills.

As no one gave him orders, Bowles tagged along for a while and then threw in with Brigham, hoping to imbibe some much-needed information about the cow business from him; but a slow, brooding silence had come over that son of the desert and he confined his remarks to few words.

"Don't crowd the cattle," he said; "and don't chase 'em. They's nothin' to it – jest watch the other hands."

He mogged along glumly then, spitting tobacco and looking wise whenever Bowles made effusive remarks; and soon the spirit of the wide places took hold of the impressionable Easterner and taught him to be still. The sun was shining gloriously now, and the air was like new wine; he had conquered Wa-ha-lote, and won a job on the ranch; yet, even as the hot blood coursed in his veins and his heart leaped for joy, the solemn silence of burly Brigham exhorted him to peace. Nay, more than that, it set up uneasy questionings in his mind and made him ponder upon what he had said. Perhaps he had spoken foolishly in the first flush of his victory; he might even have laid himself open to future gibes and jests, branding himself for a tenderfoot with every word he said.

Yes, indeed; perhaps he had. At any rate, the first words he heard as they neared the cutting-grounds were indicative of the fact.

"Hey, Bill!" roared Buck Buchanan, wafting his bull voice across the herd. "Release that Bar X cow!"

"Beg pahdon?" replied Bill, holding his hand behind his ear; and then there was a rumble of Homeric laughter that left Bowles hot with shame.

"Hey, Buck!" echoed Happy Jack, reining his horse out to turn back an ambling steer; and while all hands watched him eagerly he struck into a rough trot across the plain. Then, holding out his elbows in a manner that he supposed to be English, he bobbed higher and higher at every jump until he fell face forward on his horse's neck, and the cowboys whooped for joy. Bowles was able to laugh at this joke, and he tried to do it graciously; but the sudden wave of good manners and faultless grammar which swept over the crowd left him heated and mad clear through. Any dreams he might have cherished of becoming the little tin hero of the cow country were shattered beyond repair, and he saw the American cowboy as he really is – a very frail and human creature, who scorns all things new and foreign, and particularly objects to Eastern tenderfeet who try to beat him at his own game.

If Bowles had been piled in the dirt by his first mount and come limping forth with a grin, he would have won a corralful of friends by his grit; as it was, he had ridden Wa-ha-lote, a horse supposed to be a rank outlaw, and the cowboys were quick to resent it. Even the loyal Brigham had turned against him, looking on with a cynical smile as he saw him mocked; and as for Henry Lee, he could not even get near him. Scorn and anger and a patrician aloofness swept over Bowles' countenance by turns, and then he took Brigham's unspoken counsel and let the heathen rage. It was hard on his pride, but he schooled himself to endure it; and as cant phrase after cant phrase came back at him and he realized how loosely he had talked he decided in the future to keep his mouth shut. So far, at least, he had caught the great spirit of the West.

But now for the first time there was spread out before his eyes the shifting drama of the cow country, and he could not resist its appeal. On the edge of a great plain and within sight of jagged rock-ribbed mountains he beheld the herd of lowing cattle, the remuda of spare horses, the dashing cowboys, the fire with its heating irons, and all the changing scenes that go to make up a Western branding. For a spell the herd stood still while mothers sought out their calves and restless bulls plowed in and out; then when the clamor and blatting had lulled, and all hands had got a drink and made a change of horses, a pair of ropers rode into the herd, marking down each cow and calf and making sure they were mother and offspring. At last, when Henry Lee and his neighbors' stray men were satisfied, the ropers shook out their loops, crowded in on some unbranded calf and flipped the noose over its head. Like automatons, the quick-stepping little cutting ponies whirled and started for the fire, dragging the calves behind them by neck or legs or feet. Any way the rope fell was good enough for the cowboys, and the ponies came in on the lope.

Behind the calf pranced its frantic mother, head down and smelling its hide, and a pair of cowboys stationed for that purpose rode in and turned her back. Then the flankers rushed out and caught the rope, and the strong member seized the calf by its neck and flank and with an upward boost of the knees raised its feet from the ground and threw it flat on its side. One held up its head, the other the hind legs, and in a flash the ear-markers and hot-iron men were upon it, to give it a brand for life.

"Bat Wing!" called the dragger-up, giving the mother's brand. There was a blat, a puff of white smoke, and the calf was turned back to his "Mammy." That was the process, very simple to the cowboy and entirely devoid of any suggestion of pain; but to Bowles it seemed rather brutal, and he went back to help hold the herd.

As one roper after the other pursued his calf through the throng, or chased it over the plain while he made wild and ineffectual throws, the great herd milled and moved and shifted like a thing of life. At a distance of a hundred feet or more apart a circle of careless punchers sat their mounts, nominally engaged in holding the herd but mostly loafing on the job or talking it over in pairs. To Bowles it seemed that they were very negligent indeed, letting cows walk out which could have been turned back by the flip of a rope, and then spurring furiously after them as they made a break for the hills. If a calf which the ropers had failed to catch came dashing by, one guard, or even two, might leave his place to join in a mad pursuit, meanwhile leaving Bowles and Wa-ha-lote to patrol the entire flank of the herd. To be sure, he liked to do it; but their system seemed very poor to him, though he did not venture to say so.

Meanwhile, with futile pursuits and monotonous waits, the branding dragged slowly along, and suddenly Bowles realized he was hungry. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon, but he could perceive no symptoms of dinner. He regretted now the insufficient breakfast which he had eaten, remembering with a shade of envy the primitive appetite which had enabled the others to bolt beefsteaks like ravening wolves; also, he resolved to put a biscuit in his pocket the next time he rode out on the circle. But this availed him nothing in his extremity, and as the others sought to assuage their pangs with brown-paper cigarettes he almost regretted the freak of nicety which had kept him from learning to smoke. It was noon now – seven hours since breakfast – and just as he was about to make some guarded inquiries of Brigham the work of branding ceased. The branders, their faces grimed and sweaty and their hands caked with blood, pulled on their heavy shaps and came riding up to the herd; but not to cry: "Release them!"

Odious as these words had become to Bowles, they would have sounded good under the circumstances; but there was more work yet to come. Driving a bunch of old cows to one side for a "hold-up," Henry Lee and his strenuous assistants began cutting out dogie calves. Everything over a year old was fated to become a feeder and, while mothers bellowed and their offspring protested, Hardy Atkins and the best of the cowhands hazed the calves into the hold-up herd. It was a long and tedious operation, involving numerous wearisome chases after calves that wanted their mothers; and when at last it was done and the main herd was released, behold, a lot of cows and undesirables had to be cut back from the hold-up herd. Then the dogies had to be separated into yearlings and "twos"; and when Bowles was about ready to drop off his horse from weakness Henry Lee detailed a bunch of unfortunates to drive up the calves, and turned his pony toward home. To him it was just a little gather while the neighbors were sending in their men; but to Bowles it combined the extreme hardships of a round-up with the rigors of a forty days' fast.

In a way it was all Bowles' fault, too, for he had kept the whole outfit waiting while he made a bluff at riding Dunbar. His resolution to keep his mouth shut stood him in good stead now, for a hungry man is a wolf and will fight if you say a word. There were no gay quips and gags now, no English riding and classic quotations; every man threw the spurs into his horse and started on a run for camp. Wa-ha-lote pulled at the bit a time or two at this, and Bowles did not try to restrain him; he broke into a gallop, free and sweeping as the wind, and the tired cutting horses fell behind; then as the ranch showed up in the distance he settled down to a tireless lope, eating up the hurrying miles until Bowles could have hugged him for joy.

Here was a horse of a thousand – this black, named in an alien tongue Wa-ha-lote – and he longed as he rode into the ranch to give him some token of friendship – a lump of sugar, or whatever these desert horses liked best to eat – in order to hold his regard. So he trotted over to the cook's wagon, being extremely careful not to bob, and asked Gloomy Gus for a lump of sugar. Now Gus, as it happened, was in another bad humor, due to the boys' being an hour or so late, and to a second matter of which Bowles knew nothing; and he did not even so much as vouchsafe an answer to his request.