Copyright 1995-2005 - Chuck Pritchard

POETS, BARDS & LIARS

Excerpt taken from the diary of George Duffield who drove a herd of cattle from Texas to Iowa in 1866:

"Upset our wagon in river & lost many of our cooking utencils…Was on my horse the whole night & it raining hard… Lost my knife…There was one of our party drowned to day (Mr. Carr) & several narrow escapes & I among them…Many men in trouble. Horses all give out & men refused to do anything…Awful night…Not having had a bite to eat for 60 hours…Tired…Indians very troublesome…Oh! What a night - Thunder lightening & rain - We followed our beeves all night as they wandered about…We hauled cattle out of the mud with oxen half the day…Dark days are these to me. Nothing but bread & coffee. Hands all growling & swearing - Everything wet & cold…Sick & discouraged. Have not got the blues but am in hell of a fix…My back is blistered badly…I had a sick headache bad…All our letters have been sent to the dead letter office…Flies was worse than I ever saw them…Weather very hot…Indians saucy…One man down with boils & one with ague…Found a human skeleton on the prairie today."

Between 1867 & 1887, 5.5 million head of cattle were driven north to the markets & shipping yards by the cowboys. At an average age of 24 they trailed the herds day in & day out, suffering through severe weather, stampedes & treacherous river crossings, sometimes riding all night to tend a jittery herd. A typical trail drive would consist of about 2,500 head of cattle, 10 cowboys, a horse wrangler, a cook, the trail boss & a remuda of 80-100 head of horses. The drive would begin in the spring, about April, & end around 1200 miles away, some four months later, with the cowboy receiving wages of $100 to $120.

Those first trail outfits were sure tough. It was a new business and had to develop. Work oxen were used instead of horses to pull the wagon, and if one played out, they could rope a steer and yoke him up. They had very little grub and they usually run out of that and lived on straight beef; they had only three or four horses to the man, mostly with sore backs, because the old time saddle eat both ways, the horse's back and the cowboy's pistol pocket; they had no tents, no tarps and damn few slickers. They never kicked, because those boys was raised under just the same conditions as there was on the trail- corn meal and bacon for grub, dirt floors in the houses and no luxuries…Take her as she comes and like it. They used to brag that they could go any place a cow could and stand anything a horse could. It was their life.

For the trail each man was expected to furnish his own accoutrements. In saddles, we had the ordinary Texas make, the housings of which covered our mounts from withers to hips, and would weigh from thirty to forty pounds, bedecked with the latest in the way of trimmings and trappings. Our bridles were in keeping with the saddles, the reins as long as plough lines, while the bit was frequently ornamental and costly. The indispensable slicker, a greatcoat of oiled canvas, was ever at hand, securely tied to our cantle strings. Spurs were a matter of taste. If a rider carried a quirt, he usually dispensed with spurs, though when used, those with large, dull rowels were the make commonly chosen. In the matter of leggings, not over half our outfit had any, as a trail herd always kept in the open, and except for night herding, they were to warm in summer. Our craft never used a cattle whip, but if emergency required, the loose end of a rope served instead, and was more humane.

In 1883 all the cattle in the world seemed to be coming up from Texas. On the trail we were hardly ever out of sight of a herd, and when we got to that big flat country along the North Platte we could see the dust of others for twenty miles. One afternoon I rode up on a little hill to look for horses, and from the top of the hill I could see seven herds behind us; I knew there were eight herds ahead of us, and I could see the dust from thirteen more of them on the other side of the river.

…this species of old-time cowhand is almost extinct. But he once ranged from the timber runs in the east to shores of the Pacific, from Mexico north to snowbound land. He knew horses and he could tell you what the cow said to her calf. The floor of his home was the prairie, the sky his roof- which often leaked. His gift of God was health, an' he generally cashed in with his boots on (stampedes or lead poison). He was only part human, but he always liked animals.

In person the cowboys were mostly medium-sized men (as a heavy man was hard on horses), quick and wiry, and as a rule very good natured; in fact it did not pay to be anything else. In character their like never was or will be again. They were intensely loyal to the outfit they were working for and would fight to the death for it. They would follow their wagon boss through hell and never complain. I have seen them ride into camp after two days and nights on herd, lay down on their saddle blankets in the rain, and sleep like dead men, then get up laughing and joking about some good time they had in Ogallala or Dodge City. Living that kind of life, they were bound to be wild and brave. In fact there was only two things that the old-time cowpuncher was afraid of, a decent woman and being set afoot.

Charley Cugas quit punching and went into the cow business for himself. His start was a couple of cows and a work bull. Each cow had from six to eight calves a year. People didn't say much till the bull got to having calves and then they made it so disagreeable that Charley quit the business and is now making horsehair bridles. They say he hasn't changed much, but wears his hair very short an' dresses awfully loud.

Though hunger and thirst are probably responsible for more stampedes than all other causes combined, it is the unexpected which cannot be guarded against. A stampede is the natural result of fear, and at night or in an uncertain light, this timidity might be imparted to an entire herd by a flash of lightning or a peal of thunder, while the stumbling of a night horse, or the scent of some wild animal, would in a moments time, from frightening a few head, so infect a herd as to throw them into the wildest panic. Among the thousands of herds like ours which were driven over the trail during it's brief existence, none ever made the trip without encountering more or less trouble from the runs. Frequently a herd became so spoiled in this manner that it grew into a mania with them, so that they would stampede on the slightest provocation - or no provocation at all.

When it come brandin' time, if we had a herd of cows and calves on the Little Missouri, Grand River, Box Elder, Spring Creek or wherever it might be, we rounded up and branded the calves. It took a good cowboy to ride into a roundup and drive out a cow and calf, a mother and her own calf, so we'd know what brand to put on the calf. Everybody's calf was branded with it's mother's brand whether it was a Mill Iron calf, some small rancher's or a big outfit's - that was the custom of the range days - every calf counted and honestly prevailed.

Coming up the trail in '81 we had a man killed in a big mix-up on the Washita, in the Nationals, when six or seven herds was waiting for the river to go down, and a storm come and they all run together one night. And when I was coming up in '83 a man was killed in another outfit, going over a cut bank in broad daylight. His name was Davis, and he had a nickname I couldn't even tell you. He was with a roundup outfit on the French Fork of Republican River, right where the trail crosses it. We pulled in to water at noon, and we could see the roundup working further up the creek. It seems that two of them were trying to rope a dim-branded steer, and he went over a thirty-foot cut bank, and they both went over after him. Davis was a dally welter ( a roper who wraps the end of his rope around the saddle horn, Oregon style, instead of tying it fast the way Texans do) and he had lost his rope; he was reaching down to pick it up, at a gallop, and he didn't see what was coming. The second man saw it in time. He pulled his horse's head way up, and he lit more or less right side on top. It shook him up something terrible and he spent a long time in the hospital, but he lived through it. Davis was killed deader than hell. The roundup boys saw all this happen. When they got down there, a rider had taken up in front of his saddle and carried him to camp in his arms. Our outfit laid off that afternoon to rest the herd and help bury him, and I remember after we got the grave dug one of the fellows said: "Somebody ought to say something. Don't nobody know the Lord's Prayer?"

In 1866, Charles Goodnight obtained a surplus Army wagon, selected for it's durable iron axles, added a canvas cover, a water barrel, a tool box & the first chuck box, which was a set of heavy duty kitchen cupboards nailed to the back of the wagon. The unique wagon was so practical that it was soon copied by every outfit & was eventually manufactured by the Studebaker Brothers, who sold the wagons for $75 to $100.