suddenly transplanted from the far, hot Southwest to the high, cool regions of the Rocky Mountains.
I had shipped ten head of horses from Texas and had been on the ranch that was known as Scotty’s Canyon for about a week. During that week I realized how much trouble I was in! Scotty’s Canyon only had one partition fence on the whole ranch, which meant that there were two great big pastures. When Scotty Perth traded with the bank and got his notes marked paid, he specified that they were not to use his headquarters, corrals, and trap pastures to hold cattle in during the time they were being rounded up for shipment. This meant that the only other corrals were high up in the canyon in a very bad spot to try to corral cattle.
This corral high up in the mountains was in the head of a box canyon where a high shaft of rock was at the back of the canyon against the mountain, and the mountain was steep on both sides and at the lower end, which was about three hundred yards from the back, there was a crude rock fence about five to six feet tall that had been built by hand. It was spread out wide on the bottom on the outside of the fence and the rock had been laid reasonably straight up and down on the inside of the corral. This corral was an ancient landmark and was referred to by the natives as the Indian Horse Corral. The story went that Indians had built it to trap wild horses in and no one seemed to know how long it had been there. There was an opening but no swinging gate, and poles had to be fixed across it when stock had been penned. Over to the east of this Indian Corral and up about three hundred yards above there was a mountain not nearly as high as the rest of the mountain range that surrounded it. This little mountain had a trail winding up to the top of it, and it was a mesa of about four or five acres covered with flat rock. This landmark was known as Teepee Rock.
I had made my camp on top of Teepee Rock and was keeping my saddle horses in the Indian Rock Corral at night until I got them located and trained to come in to feed. There was a dripping spring about a hundred yards down the trail off of Teepee Rock and I cleaned out a little basin for it to settle in, and this is where I got water for my camp and to drink.
The location of this corral was bad and something else still worse than this was the fact that my good, hard Texas cow horses were at about a three-thousand-foot-higherelevation and were out of wind after a short ride in that high mountain country, which meant that I didn’t have enough speed in my horses to outrun cattle that were native at this altitude.
I had ridden out Scotty’s Canyon from one end to the other and was gettin’ ready to make my first big drive. I hired three native cowboys that agreed to mount themselves on their own horses for $5 a day apiece. This was about $2 a day higher than the wages in the rest of the country, but it seemed that most people were in sympathy with Scotty Perth, or else did not want to cultivate his dislike by helpin’ gather the cattle that he had by now begun to take the attitude and spread the word that the bank was “takin’ ” away from him.
The first day’s ride was a pretty wild one, but since we had lots of cattle in front of us and they hadn’t been choused, we netted one hundred and twenty-three head that day. After we got ’em in the canyon corrals we had to drive ’em back down into the pastures and into the valley and by Scotty’s headquarters before we got ’em out into the open country to start ’em to the railroad. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d spill a bunch of ’em the next day goin’ back down through the pasture.
We sat around camp that night and spun a few yarns, and I listened to some of the local wild cow tales before we went to bed.
Next morning we had breakfast and had ridden to the top of the canyon and were ready to turn the cattle out by daylight. It was light enough that you could see a cow and tell her
I had shipped ten head of horses from Texas and had been on the ranch that was known as Scotty’s Canyon for about a week. During that week I realized how much trouble I was in! Scotty’s Canyon only had one partition fence on the whole ranch, which meant that there were two great big pastures. When Scotty Perth traded with the bank and got his notes marked paid, he specified that they were not to use his headquarters, corrals, and trap pastures to hold cattle in during the time they were being rounded up for shipment. This meant that the only other corrals were high up in the canyon in a very bad spot to try to corral cattle.
This corral high up in the mountains was in the head of a box canyon where a high shaft of rock was at the back of the canyon against the mountain, and the mountain was steep on both sides and at the lower end, which was about three hundred yards from the back, there was a crude rock fence about five to six feet tall that had been built by hand. It was spread out wide on the bottom on the outside of the fence and the rock had been laid reasonably straight up and down on the inside of the corral. This corral was an ancient landmark and was referred to by the natives as the Indian Horse Corral. The story went that Indians had built it to trap wild horses in and no one seemed to know how long it had been there. There was an opening but no swinging gate, and poles had to be fixed across it when stock had been penned. Over to the east of this Indian Corral and up about three hundred yards above there was a mountain not nearly as high as the rest of the mountain range that surrounded it. This little mountain had a trail winding up to the top of it, and it was a mesa of about four or five acres covered with flat rock. This landmark was known as Teepee Rock.
I had made my camp on top of Teepee Rock and was keeping my saddle horses in the Indian Rock Corral at night until I got them located and trained to come in to feed. There was a dripping spring about a hundred yards down the trail off of Teepee Rock and I cleaned out a little basin for it to settle in, and this is where I got water for my camp and to drink.
The location of this corral was bad and something else still worse than this was the fact that my good, hard Texas cow horses were at about a three-thousand-foot-higherelevation and were out of wind after a short ride in that high mountain country, which meant that I didn’t have enough speed in my horses to outrun cattle that were native at this altitude.
I had ridden out Scotty’s Canyon from one end to the other and was gettin’ ready to make my first big drive. I hired three native cowboys that agreed to mount themselves on their own horses for $5 a day apiece. This was about $2 a day higher than the wages in the rest of the country, but it seemed that most people were in sympathy with Scotty Perth, or else did not want to cultivate his dislike by helpin’ gather the cattle that he had by now begun to take the attitude and spread the word that the bank was “takin’ ” away from him.
The first day’s ride was a pretty wild one, but since we had lots of cattle in front of us and they hadn’t been choused, we netted one hundred and twenty-three head that day. After we got ’em in the canyon corrals we had to drive ’em back down into the pastures and into the valley and by Scotty’s headquarters before we got ’em out into the open country to start ’em to the railroad. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d spill a bunch of ’em the next day goin’ back down through the pasture.
We sat around camp that night and spun a few yarns, and I listened to some of the local wild cow tales before we went to bed.
Next morning we had breakfast and had ridden to the top of the canyon and were ready to turn the cattle out by daylight. It was light enough that you could see a cow and tell her
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