Chapter X: After Scrub Cattle

That first night Snap was glad enough to get to bed. Not that he was sleepy; on the contrary, tired out as he was, he was preternaturally wideawake. Everything was so new to him, and, besides, that horrible Borwick was still an unquiet spirit within him. The cowboys of the North-West are probably the only possible rivals to the ostrich in the matter of digestion still extant. Like the ostrich, they could safely dine on door-nails and sup on soda-water bottles, so that they had already forgotten Borwick and were snoring peacefully. Snap wished he could imitate them. The bed in which he found himself combined all the advantages of a bed and a thermometer. Founded upon pine boards, it consisted of five pairs of blankets. In summer heat you slept on one blanket out of doors. In temperate weather you slept under one indoors. As it grew colder the number of blankets above you increased, until four above (with a buffalo-robe) and one below indicated blizzards and frostbite on the prairie.

It seemed to Snap that just as he was going off to sleep someone struck a match, lit a pipe, and then began lighting the fire. This was old Wharton, but he let the boy lie (being a charitable old soul) until he roused him up with:

'Now, lazybones, you can wash in the crik outside if you've a mind to, only breakfast is ready.'

Snap hopped out of his blankets and ran down to the crik, although no one else seemed to care about it, and so biting was the cold that he felt it would have been worth his last dollar to be allowed to take a hand at the wood-chopping going on outside. The worst of it was that he couldn't chop 'worth a cent,' as big Frank Atkins informed him, and indeed, although he hit the log all over and with every part of the axe, it seemed even to Snap that he made very small progress. The sense of his own uselessness was getting absolutely oppressive to the boy as it was borne in upon him more and more that even cooking, chopping, and such like, want learning, and don't come naturally to any of us.

Breakfast was a short ceremony--bacon and jam--'trapper's jam,' that is, made from bacon grease and a spoonful of brown sugar, washed down with a huge draught of weak tea. After this everyone lit his pipe, and old Wharton, turning to Snap, said:

'You may as well go along with the boys to meet Tony and the rest with them scrub cattle. They're a bit short-handed, and I can't go myself; the boss will be making things hum here up at the ranche for the next day or two.'

A few minutes later Atkins came up with a dun-coloured pony, 'a buckskin' he called it.

'Theer,' said Wharton, 'if I'm your nuss, Shaver, that theer's your cradle; and you'd better get in right now.'

There was a grin on everyone's face, but Snap, though afraid of being laughed at, was afraid of nothing else, and had ridden a little since he was a very small boy, so he climbed unhesitatingly into the great cowboy saddle. As he did so his amiable 'Cradle' laid back her ears, and tried to get hold of his toe in her teeth. Being frustrated in this, she curled herself into a hoop, and began to 'reverse' as the waltzers call it. Then she stood still and waited. Atkins threw himself into the saddle and cracked his whip, Snap touched his mare with the spurs, and then the Cradle began what Wharton called 'rocking,' _i.e._ bucking, in a way that only prairie-reared horses understand. To his credit be it said, Snap sat tight for the first 'buck,' at the second he went up into very high latitudes with his legs almost round his horse's neck, at the third he 'came south,' reposing gracefully on the buckskin's quarters like a costermonger on his 'moke,' while at the fourth he sat promptly down upon the prairie, from whence he watched 'that cayouse' finish her performance by herself. When Atkins and Wharton and the rest had finished laughing, which took longer than finishing breakfast, they picked up the crest-fallen Snap and put him upon a quieter beast.

'That's one of yourn too,' laughed Wharton; 'you'd better have the six buckskins for your string, my lad, but I'd keep old White-foot just for Sundays or any time as you feel lonesome and want amusement.'

Snap didn't reply, but thought to himself that if indeed the six horses in the little corral were set aside for his use, it should not be long before he was master of the good-looking, bad-tempered brute which had just grassed him so ignominiously.

'Not hurted much, are you, young 'un?' asked Atkins.

'No.'

'That's right, let's get,' and, so saying, Atkins led off at a canter, Snap's new steed following at a gait easy as a rocking-chair.

The early morning is always the very best of the day, even in our begrimed and foggy English cities; on the plains of the North-West the morning air is as exhilarating as champagne. Every living thing feels and acknowledges the influence of the young day. Horses toss their heads and strain their strong muscles in a glorious 'breather' without encouragement from the rider, while the rider feels his blood racing through his veins, his heart beating, his brain quick and clear, and the whole man full of unconscious thankfulness to God for the delight of merely living. All that day Atkins and Snap rode towards and through the foot-hills, and at night camped where someone had evidently camped not long ago. Being handy and anxious to learn, Snap soon made friends with his companion, found the poles on which the last wanderers had hung a blanket in lieu of a tent, found some wood for firing, fetched the water for the billy, and learned how to hobble the horses.

That night he felt, as he watched the stars through the tops of the big bull-pines, he had really begun life out west, and might after all learn to hold his own with the strong men round him. It was an improvement on the night before, when everything seemed very hopeless and strange.

Early on the second morning, Atkins and Snap heard a distant roaring in the hills. Snap's thoughts at once reverted to bears and suchlike beasts, and foolishly he gave utterance to his thoughts. Atkins laughed heartily.

'No, no, them's the cows a-coming. Didn't you know as we were near them last night?'

'Not I,' said Snap; 'how did you know?'

'I heerd 'em just afore we camped, but I knew if we'd kep' on we shouldn't have struck 'em till after dark, so I guessed we'd just camp by ourselves.'

By-and-by the lowing of the beasts, which the winding glens and resounding woods had so magnified and distorted to Snap's ears, came quite close, and Atkins told him to come 'well off the track, in here among the bull-pines, and light down, hold your horse, and for goodness' sake hold your jaw, for if old Tony hears you speak he'll not stop swearing till he has cussed all the breath out of his body.' So Snap 'lit down' and held his tongue, and presently he started as he found a pair of big brown eyes fastened on him from the bush by his side. Then there was a little frightened snort, the first sound he had heard; a beast's tail was whisked in the air, and with a plunge half a dozen, mostly yearlings, crashed past him parallel to the trail. It took nearly half an hour for the whole band, nearly sixty all told, to straggle past, feeding as they went, and it entered into Snap's mind to wonder how anyone ever heard or saw a real wild beast if these half-tame parti-coloured oxen could go so quietly through brush and timber.

Last of all came the drivers; three cowboys they would have been called, though Snap thought the term 'boy' fitted them as badly as 'cow' fitted at least one-half of the stock in front of them. Still, on a cattle range all bulls, however old and fierce, are 'cows' to the end of their days, and all those who deal with them 'boys,' no matter how grey their hair.

That night Snap had his first turn of what he considered 'active service,' being told off to keep the cattle together for the first half of the night, another man lending him a hand to prevent accidents. Although ordered so peremptorily to keep his mouth shut on the trail, lest the sound of a strange voice should scare the beasts, he was now told that he had better sing or shout from time to time, letting the beasts hear his voice, the human voice seeming to inspire them with a certain amount of confidence.

Snap found it necessary to sing or do something of that sort for other reasons as he led his horse about or rode him slowly on his solitary rounds. After such a day as he had had his eyes were more inclined to sleep than watch, and he envied the drowsy cattle as one by one they lay down with a contented 'ouf' upon the prairie. At last all the great shadows had sunk down to rest, and all you could see in the starlight was an indistinct dark mass upon the prairie. From time to time a shadow would appear a hundred yards or so outside the group, moving silently and slowly away. Quick as thought, when this occurred, another shadow (Snap's companion) would dash from his post and turn back the truant, feeding away from his companions, to the rest he had deserted. Snap soon learnt the game, and was getting very interested in it, when suddenly he noticed all the shadows move then rise to their feet, and, before even his galloping companion in the night-watch could get near them, they were dashing in wild, headlong flight into the darkness.

'Wake the boys and follow,' roared his companion, vanishing into the darkness after the flying beasts, and like a dream herd and herdsmen were gone, and Snap left alone. The 'boys' didn't need much waking. By the time Snap was at the camp they were up, and in an incredibly short time their horses were caught and saddled, and they were galloping after the panic-stricken beasts.

'What stampeded them, rot them?' asked Atkins as he tightened his girths.

'I don't know; they were still as stones one moment and gone the next,' answered Snap.

'Bar! I reckon,' growled another cowboy; 'there always are bar about this forsaken camp.'

'You stay here till we come back, and if we aren't back by to-morrow noon make tracks for Rosebud,' shouted Atkins as he galloped off, leaving Snap alone in camp without an idea where Rosebud was or how he was ever going to get there.

However, as there was nothing to be done, he had a look first to see if his horse was all right, and then, being reassured upon that point, kicked the embers of the camp fire into a blaze, put the frying-pan, with some cold bacon in it, left over from supper, somewhere handy for breakfast, and lay down in his rugs. In five minutes he had forgotten his loneliness, and was in as sweet a sleep as innocence and hard work ever won for a weary mortal. It was almost dawn when he woke with a start, hearing his buckskin snorting and crashing about in the bushes close to him. As he jumped to his feet he heard the frying-pan rattle, and as he glanced in that direction he saw a huge, heavy beast slope off into the forest. I say 'slope' advisedly, although it is slang. What a bear does, I suppose, is to gallop, but that word gives you an idea of great speed, which would be wrong. If I had said 'canter,' the graceful pace of a lady's hack is at once conjured up before your mind's eye, and there is very little grace in Bruin's movements. He doesn't trot, and he only 'shuffles' when he is walking. If I had said 'roll,' which in some degree describes his action, the word would not have necessarily implied the use of feet at all, so I must stick, please, to 'slope,' as being the best word to express the smooth, quiet way which a bear has of conveying himself with a certain rapidity out of harm's way.

The light was very dim, as the time was that mysterious season between midnight and dawn, and Snap knew very little about rifles, but, being thoroughly English, without counting the cost he snatched up a Winchester repeating rifle, and proceeded to 'pump lead' at the vanishing bear as long as he could see him. Then all was still again, and remained so until two cheeky little 'robber-birds,' in coats of grey and black, came hopping round the dead embers with their heads on one side, complaining noisily that the upturned frying-pan was quite empty. Snap, too, was sorry for this, and wished that he had interrupted Bruin a little earlier in his midnight pilfering.

When the dawn had fully come, and the great red sun was climbing up into the heavens, the boy went to look at the bear's tracks. Later on, when he had learnt some of the secrets of wood-craft, those tracks would have been plain enough to him--a story written in large print, which he could easily read from his saddle. Now, groping about with his nose almost on the ground, he could not make much of them, and hardly knew the bear's tracks from his pony's. At last (and not very far from the camp fire) Snap came upon a great splash of blood. Even he (inexperienced though he was) understood this, and rightly concluded that the bear was hit. 'A deuced lucky fluke,' he said to himself honestly enough, as he went back to the fireside, his eyes brightening, as far away on the plain outside the clump of bull-pines he saw two of the cowboys cantering towards him. They were soon alongside and listened to his story, after which they went to look at the tracks.

'Wal,' said one, 'you've got the right sort o' grit, lad, but it's tarnation lucky for you that that bar as you shot at warn't the critter as stampeded them cows last night.'

'Why?' asked Snap.

'Why? wal,' replied the cowboy, 'them tracks is the tracks of a black bar, and they ain't of no account. The bar as stampeded them cattle last night was a grizzly, and if you'd happened to take it into your head to do a little rifle-shooting at him with that thing--wal! you wouldn't have been here this morning.'