Arizona Nights

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE CORRAL BRANDING

  All that night we slept like sticks of wood. No dreams visited us, butin accordance with the immemorial habit of those who live out--whetherin the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or at sea--onceduring the night each of us rose on his elbow, looked about him, anddropped back to sleep. If there had been a fire to replenish, thatwould have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing andthe seas rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft forindications, to feel whether the anchor cable was holding; if thepack-horses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, thiswould have been the occasion for intent listening for the faintlytinkling hell so that next day one would know in which direction tolook. But since there existed for us no responsibility, we eachreported dutifully at the roll-call of habit, and dropped back into ourblankets with a grateful sigh.

  I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently stationarycloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow lying before distant silverymountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvases, each of whichconcealed a man; the air trembled with the bellowing of cattle in thecorrals.

  Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me toconsciousness again. A clear, licking little fire danced in theblackness. Before it moved silhouettes of men already eating.

  I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing his menfor the day. Three were to care for the remuda; five were to move thestray-herd from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews weretold to brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoonbefore. That took up about half the men. The rest were to make ashort drive in the salt grass. I joined the Cattleman, and together wemade our way afoot to the branding pen.

  We were the only ones who did go afoot, however, although the corralswere not more than two hundred yards' distant. When we arrived wefound the string of ponies standing around outside. Between theupright bars of greasewood we could see the cattle, and near theopposite side the men building a fire next the fence. We pushed openthe wide gate and entered. The three ropers sat their horses, idlyswinging the loops of their ropes back and forth. Three others broughtwood and arranged it craftily in such manner as to get best draught forheatin,--a good branding fire is most decidedly a work of art. Onestood waiting for them to finish, a sheaf of long JH stamping irons inhis hand. All the rest squatted on their heels along the fence,smoking cigarettes and chatting together. The first rays of the sunslanted across in one great sweep from the remote mountains.

  In ten minutes Charley pronounced the irons ready. Homer, Wooden, andold California John rode in among the cattle. The rest of the menarose and stretched their legs and advanced. The Cattleman and Iclimbed to the top bar of the gate, where we roosted, he with histally-book on his knee.

  Each rider swung his rope above his head with one hand, keeping thebroad loop open by a skilful turn of the wrist at the end of eachrevolution. In a moment Homer leaned forward and threw. As the loopsettled, he jerked sharply upward, exactly as one would strike to hooka big fish. This tightened the loop and prevented it from slippingoff. Immediately, and without waiting to ascertain the result of themanoeuvre, the horse turned and began methodically, without unduehaste, to walk toward the branding fire. Homer wrapped the rope twiceor thrice about the horn, and sat over in one stirrup to avoid thetightened line and to preserve the balance. Nobody paid any attentionto the calf. The critter had been caught by the two hind legs. As therope tightened, he was suddenly upset, and before he could realise thatsomething disagreeable was happening, he was sliding majestically alongon his belly. Behind him followed his anxious mother, her headswinging from side to side.

  Near the fire the horse stopped. The two "bull-doggers" immediatelypounced upon the victim. It was promptly flopped over on its rightside. One knelt on its head and twisted back its foreleg in a sort ofhammer-lock; the other seized one hind foot, pressed his boot heelagainst the other hind leg close to the body, and sat down behind theanimal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When once you have hadthe wind knocked out of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to thinkthis unnecessarily rough. Then one or the other threw off the rope.Homer rode away, coiling the rope as he went.

  "Hot iron!" yelled one of the bull-doggers.

  "Marker!" yelled the other.

  Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron smoothlyagainst the flank. A smoke and the smell of scorching hair arose.Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a briefmoment it was over. The brand showed cherry, which is the propercolour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark.

  In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with asharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear. Then henicked out a swallow-tail in the other. The pieces he thrust into hispocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus checkthe Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calves branded.[3] Thebull-dogger let go. The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelledover by his worried mother, and the two departed into the herd to talkit over.

  It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as tothe extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is to some extentpainful, and could some other method of ready identification bedevised, it might be as well to adopt it in preference. But in thecircumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and hundreds ofowners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a NewEngland movement looking toward small brass tags to be hung from theear. Inextinguishable laughter followed the spread of this doctrinethrough Arizona. Imagine a puncher descending to examine politely theear-tags of wild cattle on the open range or in a round-up.

  But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and ear-markingare not so painful as one might suppose. The scorching hardlypenetrates below the outer tough skin--only enough to kill the roots ofthe hair--besides which it must be remembered that cattle are not sosensitive as the higher nervous organisms. A calf usually bellows whenthe iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes tofeeding or to looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one eventake the trouble to lick his wounds, which is certainly not true in thecase of the injuries they inflict on each other in fighting. Besideswhich, it happens but once in a lifetime, and is over in ten seconds; acomfort denied to those of us who have our teeth filled.

  In the meantime two other calves had been roped by the two other men.One of the little animals was but a few months old, so the rider didnot bother with its hind legs, but tossed his loop over its neck.Naturally, when things tightened up, Mr. Calf entered his objections,which took the form of most vigorous bawlings, and the most comicalbucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding in the air. Mr. Frost'sbull-calf alone in pictorial history shows the attitudes. And then, ofcourse, there was the gorgeous contrast between all this frantic anduncomprehending excitement and the absolute matter-of-factimperturbability of horse and rider. Once at the fire, one of the menseized the tightened rope in one hand, reached well over the animal'sback to get a slack of the loose hide next the belly, lifted strongly,and tripped. This is called "bull-dogging." As he knew his business,and as the calf was a small one, the little beast went over promptly,bit the ground with a whack, and was pounced upon and held.

  Such good luck did not always follow, however. An occasional andexceedingly husky bull yearling declined to be upset in any suchmanner. He would catch himself on one foot, scramble vigorously, andend by struggling back to the upright. Then ten to one he made a dashto get away. In such case he was generally snubbed up short enough atthe end of the rope; but once or twice he succeeded in running around agroup absorbed in branding. You can imagine what happened next. Therope, attached at one end to a conscientious and immovable horse and atthe other to a reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut anddestroying way about mid-knee high across that group. The brander andmarker, who were standing, promptly sat down h
ard; the bull-doggers,who were sitting, immediately turned several most capable somersaults;the other calf arose and inextricably entangled his rope with that ofhis accomplice. Hot irons, hot language, and dust filled the air.

  Another method, and one requiring slightly more knack, is to grasp theanimal's tail and throw it by a quick jerk across the pressure of therope. This is productive of some fun if it fails.

  By now the branding was in full swing. The three horses came and wentphlegmatically. When the nooses fell, they turned and walked towardthe fire as a matter of course. Rarely did the cast fail. Men ran toand fro busy and intent. Sometimes three or four calves were on theground at once. Cries arose in a confusion: "Marker" "Hot iron!""Tally one!" Dust eddied and dissipated. Behind all were clearsunlight and the organ roll of the cattle bellowing.

  Toward the middle of the morning the bull-doggers began to get a littletired.

  "No more necked calves," they announced. "Catch 'em by the hind legs,or bull-dog 'em yourself."

  And that went. Once in a while the rider, lazy, or careless, orbothered by the press of numbers, dragged up a victim caught by theneck. The bull-doggers flatly refused to have anything to do with it.An obvious way out would have been to flip off the loop and try again;but of course that would have amounted to a confession of wrong.

  "You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowlydismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! What you all need isa nigger to cut up your food for you!"

  Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck attendedhis first effort, his sarcasm was profound.

  "There's yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me toteit to you, or do you reckon you could toddle this far with yore littleold iron?"

  But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while theunfortunate puncher wrestled it down.

  Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce. Sometimesthe men rode here and there for a minute or so before their eyes fellon a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over to the Cattlemanand reported the branding finished. The latter counted the marks inhis tally-book.

  "One hundred and seventy-six," he announced.

  The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears theyhad saved. The total amounted to but an hundred and seventy-five.Everybody went to searching for the missing bit. It was notforth-coming. Finally Wooden discovered it in his hip pocket.

  "Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must shorely bea chaw of tobacco."

  This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies.They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the morning, but didnot seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical cultureperiodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balanced, like anoarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. Thewriter should be turned loose in a branding corral.

  Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open plain.There they were held for over an hour while the cows wandered aboutlooking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf by scent andsound, not by sight. Therefore the noise was deafening, and the motionincessant.

  Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most foolishcalf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water and grass at its ownpleasure, and went slowly back to chuck.

  [3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note that thefragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore not bloody.