7
Monday morning I am up early, so I can have my breakfast and get the saddle horses in the corral before Bud and his party arrive. I’m determined to make the best possible impression on my big brother, because I know I was dead wrong in looking for trouble at a sheep camp.
Ray left me early Sunday, taking a half pint of the sheepherders’ whiskey with him, leaving quite a few drinks in the jug for Bud and his gang if they need an appetizer. My eye is better, although much discolored, and I see rather well. The left hand is still sore and means no roping, so Bud is stuck if there is any work with a rope.
The guys must have left home in the middle of the night, for it’s only nine o’clock and a buckboard with four men is crossing through the pasture toward our house. I open the gate, letting them in our big wire corral, where at the barn they unload. Bud has brought two good riders to give us help in corralling the wild horses, and his buyer, Mr. Miller. Before they are all on the ground, everyone yells, “What happened to you?” This I knew was coming, so I spill the works and don’t give myself the best of it, because it wouldn’t go over with Bud. He has taught me always to give it to him straight, so now he has the worst, and I feel better.
Everyone gets a hell of a kick out of Ray and his jug for protection, and when I make known the fact that there is some left, everyone heads for the house before going to work. Here my big brother looks me over and decides I came out rather well, except the hand which he says we’ll have X-rayed tomorrow.
Bud and the two punchers, Blondy Arnold and Dave Collier, have their saddles, so will ride three of our top horses. Bud will ride Silver, his very special. I will ride War Whoop and the other two fellows will ride Keno and Rowd. All were originally wild horses but now are four of the fastest and best of all, and they can run all day.
As we saddle up, we leave the buyer, Mr. Miller, at the windmill, where he can’t be seen but will have a good view of what takes place. The four of us ride out into the large pasture about a mile, where the one fence turns right for miles. This is the end of our bottleneck.
Since I am light weight, I always have the key spot to turn the horses toward the entrance to our big wire corral. The trick is starting the bunch from the far side of our large pasture toward this spot and keeping them coming until they’re pushed into the corral. Today should be easy. We have about nine hundred wild ones, but about two hundred are yearlings and two-year-olds which were shipped in as babies, so are not as wild as the others, which is a big help in controlling the others. All are nice and fat and full of run, but thanks to the windmills and salt and a few half gentle ones, we don’t anticipate too much trouble.
Bud sends Dave to the far side of our pasture, leaving the three of us to hold them in the bottleneck so they can’t get back out to the large part of the pasture. As we’re waiting for Dave to start them running, Bud tells me about Mr. Miller. He was sent to Bud by a St. Louis commission man who knows all about our wild horses and how wonderful they are if properly broken and trained. But Mr. Miller only wants thirty, which don’t make sense to me. All this work to sell thirty for forty-five dollars a head seems silly, when always other buyers buy two or three hundred or all we have at a price. This thirty business surprises me indeed — until I learn he is out for polo ponies, and all said ponies have to be a certain height, of a certain weight, and trained to follow a ball like a cow pony follows a cow.
Bud says he’s sure we have the kind he wants, and may get as much as one hundred and fifty apiece if they’re properly broken. He don’t have to say any more. I know what’s coming. I’m stuck, and here they come following the fence to our number two windmill. Here in the flat, with fences on three sides, they will mill around and finally settle down, while we close in and gently ease the entire bunch into our number one wire corral.
At this point Bud says to leave them while we go in and have some food and they get over their scare. I take the two punchers who I’ve known for years with me to help with the food, which won’t take long, for everything is out of cans, except biscuits, beans and sow belly. The guys are more interested in the jug than in helping me, which is fine, as I do better alone.
Bud and his buyer come in and Bud has a couple bottles of his favorite, which he brought out this morning. So he and Mr. Miller ignore my jug, which is more than all right with me.
This Mr. Miller is a nice guy. A little on the short, pudgy side, but awfully jolly, and he wants to know all about my deal with the sheepherders again. He can’t seem to get it out of his mind when my big brother, who usually doesn’t put me on the spot, has to come up with “You know this isn’t my kid brother’s first contact with the sheep boys. He damned near got killed the first time. It was almost identical to what happened in this affair. I sent him to represent me at a roundup some eighty miles the other side of the Platte, up in the Buttes. So a gang of punchers went over to a sheep camp and were messing with the gals when one of the sheep men started shooting. My young brother headed for his horse. While he was bent over, climbing through a wire fence, the guy put two holes through the inside pocket of his coat. I thought that would cure the taste for sheep, but I guess not. What about it, Pard?” When I assure him I am cured for life, he only says, “I hope.”
The guys eat like horses. They clean me out of everything, which Bud says is good, for I am to go with them to town to have my hand X-rayed. While I was preparing our meal, Bud and his buyer were looking the horses over, sitting on the high board fence, and Mr. Miller was as excited as a kid. He had never seen such a magnificent band of horses all together at one time. There were all kinds of colors, but best of all were the style and movement. They were in a class of their own. He keeps asking Bud to put a price on War Whoop, Silver and Pal. This Bud would not do, explaining that Pal belonged to me and was the first horse I had ever broken by myself, while Silver was his own pet and War Whoop was the number one horse in my string of ten cow ponies.
For some reason, this seemed to please Mr. Miller. Anyone who thought enough of their pet horses to refuse money, the horses and man must both be all right. Bud did tell him he could have a little gray horse I broke the year before — we called him Possum — as a start toward his thirty polo ponies if they could agree on a price. So out to the horses we go, where we are going to let Mr. Miller pick forty of the horses he thinks will be best.
With Dave and Blondy working the larger wooden gates to the board corrals, Bud and I cut out the ones Mr. Miller chooses. This is a slow job, but finally we have forty of the most beautiful little horses separated from the others. All except this forty we release to the big pasture. I have never seen any man so pleased and happy as our buyer, Mr. Miller, is with these ponies. They are all about the same size, and he has picked mostly blacks, bays, sorrels, grays and only one palomino. With the forty where Bud and Mr. Miller can look until they deal or else, Dave, Blondy and I leave them to their trading. It isn’t long until Bud calls me and walks me off to a place where we can talk. “Pard, how long do you think it will take you to break thirty-five of these babies the way we break horses like, say, Possum and Pal? The reason I ask is, if we can do the job by September, I can get one hell of a price, but they must be perfectly broken. If we can make this sale, we will have something good going every year and while I don’t know anything about polo, these ponies will be different and better than anything the East has ever seen. He wants to take delivery on the tenth of September, and I will furnish you with some young puncher and his wife to do the cooking and help you and will give you twice your wages each month, plus ten dollars for each horse we deliver. This way, you will have quite a bank roll for this winter.”
This is too much, and I tell my big brother he doesn’t have to give me that kind of money I would almost work for nothing, just for the pleasure of training such a nice bunch of colts. All I want him to do is not give me any cheap cowboy with a wife to get in our way but a top boy like Dave and pay him top wages, someone who can help, not be in my way.
Bud is sure a peach. He understands and agrees to let me hire Dave and one other good hand and pay them tops and, best of all, he will help until the thirty-five have been broken to lead and I have ridden all of them once. With this, I’m in clover. We can’t miss, and I almost drop dead when I learn that Mr. Miller is going to give three hundred per head for thirty and he might take the thirty-five. Bud is going to give him a demonstration of what a trained wild horse looks like with Possum, the little gray. Bud says, “Just think, with this sale we will have more than twice the cost of all our horses and have them all free and clear, and Mr. Miller is to sign a contract at the bank and put up some money tomorrow to cinch the deal, and will Father be pleased?” Yes, and what about Father, when he sees me with this eye and fist. “Look, Son, if Father sees you walking, he will be satisfied. As long as they don’t carry you home feet first, he will be satisfied. Besides, I will be there to run interference for you. Only, tell him the worst, don’t hold back. He knows you are far from being a choir boy.”
It doesn’t take Bud long to show how well Possum works, which is really my job. As I have a bad hand, he does it better than I could with a good hand. He takes the little gray out to the open by placing his hand over his mane, and then, bareback, without any hackamore or bridle but by holding on to his mane with his left hand, jumps on his back and by the pressure of his knees and holding his mane makes the little gray pivot, run and turn in a way Mr. Miller said he had never seen any polo pony do, and he has a finishing school for polo ponies.
As it is now the tenth of July and my birthday is the fifteenth, Bud was going to have me home for that day anyway, even if I didn’t have a bad hand. Sally is going to make a special cake and I will be eighteen, which is more years than Father expected me to be around. Up to now, I have fooled all the family except Bud. He always expects the best.
I am to take our own team and buckboard with Dave and follow Bud, who has rented the outfit he is driving from the livery stable. When I come back to start work I will need to bring a load of groceries and two boys with me, because we won’t be going to town for a couple of months. We don’t reach home until midnight, and Father is asleep, which is perfect, so in the morning I am in no hurry. I let Father and Bud eat some of Sally’s hotcakes before I appear. They are always up early, which gives my big brother time to tell Father all the news and, I hope, have the way all cleared for my entrance. My appearance is just right. Father is in a beautiful mood. He takes a look at my hand and wants Sally to look me over, as she is a honey at mending eyes and hands, but they all agree I need an X-ray. This is wonderful. I’m not even told to stay away from sheep camps. I guess everyone thinks by now I have had enough to last me a lifetime. They are so right!
I have a letter from Aunt Jo that has been waiting for two weeks, enclosing a fifty-dollar check. This I proudly exhibit with the remark, “She knows you fellows are starving me to death.” This isn’t very smart, for Sally hasn’t fed me my hotcakes yet, and “Boy,” she says, “you can eat oats with the horses this morning.” Nevertheless, with a lot of soft soap on my part, she feeds me breakfast for a king.
Driving Father’s famous mare, we all leave for town in high glee, me for the doctor, Father and Bud for the bank to meet Mr. Miller. The contract is completed and Bud has some of Mr. Miller’s money as a guarantee, and our gentleman buyer wants to buy my little palomino for five hundred dollars, which is no dice. As long as this pony lives he stays with us, where he has a good home. We don’t sell our pet horses. Besides, Pal is special.
Summer is almost over. With my two helpers, Dave Collier and Hal Day, we have worked every day, even Sundays, with good results, far better than we expected. Every one of the ponies is full of pep but thoroughly broke. We have even gotten them familiar with a mallet, as Mr. Miller sent Bud two polo mallets with polo balls, so in a flat part of our pasture we have given them practice in following the ball.
Mr. Miller arrived three days early and has stayed at the ranch with us overnight and is happy as a fellow could be with his ponies. They are now his. All we have to do is deliver them to the stockyards, where they will be loaded on special horse cars attached to a passenger train. No freight car for them. He tried to hire me to make the trip east with the ponies, but I don’t want to go. Besides, Bud wants me to join the roundup wagon in a few days, so Mr. Miller hires my two helpers, Dave and Hal, with a round-trip ticket and good wages.
No wonder he wanted to buy Pal so bad. He finally, the night he stayed at our ranch, after a couple of stiff Yellowstone highballs, confessed he could get at least twenty-five hundred for him from some of the millionaire polo players. It is evidently a rich man’s game, and I’m glad. That’s good for my family. Bud has paid me more money than I know what to do with, except to spend it. So I buy Sally a couple of pretty dresses, Father a couple of horse blankets for his harness mare and gaited saddle horse, which pleases him more than anything I could have possibly bought him personally. It was Bud’s suggestion. My big brother I buy a beautiful automatic forty-four with a light shoulder holster and two of the best special hemp ropes in existence. So, for myself, I go to Sidney, Nebraska, which is a short distance from our home, where the town is wide open. I buy a dozen and a half of the best old Yellowstone, six for Father, six for Bud. The others I take to the ranch and prepare to join the roundup.