章节正文
I didn't see them any more after that until I'd hit the Lazy Y,
and had started in runnin' cattle in the Soda Springs Valley.
Larry Eagen and I rode together those days, and that's how I got
to know him pretty well. One day, over in the Elm Flat, we ran
smack on this Texas outfit again, headed north. This time I was
on my own range, and I knew where I stood, so I could show a
little more curiosity in the case.
"Well, you got this far," says I.
"Yes," says they.
"Where you headed?"
"Over towards the hills."
"What to do?"
"Make a ranch, raise some truck; perhaps buy a few cows."
They went on.
"Truck" says I to Larry, "is fine prospects in this country."
He sat on his horse looking after them.
"I'm sorry for them" says he. "It must he mighty" target="_blank" title="a.万能的；全能的">almighty hard
scratchin'."
Well, we rode the range for upwards of two year. In that time we
saw our Texas friends--name of Hahn--two or three times in
Willets, and heard of them off and on. They bought an old brand
of Steve McWilliams for seventy-five dollars, carryin' six or
eight head of cows. After that, from time to time, we heard of
them buying more--two or three head from one man, and two or
three from another. They branded them all with that McWilliams
iron--T 0--so, pretty soon, we began to see the cattle on the
range.
Now, a good cattleman knows cattle just as well as you know
people, and he can tell them about as far off. Horned critters
look alike to you, but even in a country supportin' a good many
thousand head, a man used to the business can recognise most
every individual as far as he can see him. Some is better than
others at it. I suppose you really have to be brought up to it.
So we boys at the Lazy Y noted all the cattle with the new T 0,
and could estimate pretty close that the Hahn outfit might own,
maybe, thirty-five head all told.
That was all very well, and nobody had any kick comin'. Then one
day in the spring, we came across our first "sleeper."
What's a sleeper? A sleeper is a calf that has been ear-marked,
but not branded. Every owner has a certain brand, as you know,
and then he crops and slits the ears in a certain way, too. In
that manner he don't have to look at the brand, except to
corroborate the ears; and, as the critter generally sticks his
ears up inquirin'-like to anyone ridin' up, it's easy to know the
brand without lookin' at it, merely from the ear-marks. Once in
a great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it
ain't handy to build a fire, he just ear-marks it and let's the
brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit
had strict orders never to make sleepers.
Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin',
when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf. The little fellow was
ear-marked all right, so we rode on, and never would have
discovered nothin' if a bush rabbit hadn't jumped and scared the
calf right across in front of our hosses. Then we couldn't help
but see that there wasn't no brand.
Of course we roped him and put the iron on him. I took the
chance to look at his ears,, and saw that the marking had been
done quite recent, so when we got in that night I reported to
Buck Johnson that one of the punchers was gettin' lazy and
sleeperin'. Naturally he went after the man who had done it;
but every puncher swore up and down, and back and across, that
he'd branded every calf he'd had a rope on that spring. We put
it down that someone was lyin', and let it go at that.
And then, about a week later, one of the other boys reported a
Triangle-H sleeper. The Triangle-H was the Goodrich brand, so we
didn't have nothin' to do with that. Some of them might be
sleeperin' for all we knew. Three other cases of the same kind
we happened across that same spring.
So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little
astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did well that
summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out
maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that
Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven
yearlin's.
"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these
youngsters comin' over our way."
But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old
one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great
store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's
all there was to it.
Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we
came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but
Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he
turned back and roped her, and threw her.
"Look here, Jed," says he, "what do you make of this?"
I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned.
"Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet," says I.
"Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look
more like hobbles."
So we didn't say nothin' more about that neither, until just by
luck we came on another lame cow. We threw her, too.
"Well, what do you think of this one?" Buck Johnson asks me.
"The feet is pretty well tore up," says I, "and down to the
quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when
they come down out of the mountains."
You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will
take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can't follow, and
then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his
iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin'
of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what
had happened.
We rode on mightythoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that
cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked,
hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then,
after the calf was weaned, and quit followin' of his mother, the
rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark
to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin' together a bunch
of cattle cheap.
But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might
be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican
line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin'
near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little
cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't
shy very hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson
told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big
owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves
for the number of cows.
[2] "Oilers"--Greasers--Mexicans.
The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in
this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals
this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land,
and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa.
Nobody never rode over his way very much, 'cause the country was
most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the
southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin' a little.
I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and
they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One
evenin' he took me to one side.
"Look here, Jed," says he, "I know you pretty well, and I'm not
ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle business--in fact,
I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the
proportion of cows to calves anyhow?"
"There ought to be about twice as many cows as there're calves,"
I tells him.
"Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not
to be an equal number of yearlin's?"
"I should say not," says I. "What are you drivin' at?"
"Nothin' yet," says he.
A few days later he tackled me again.
"Jed," says he, "I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin'
one cow from another, but there's a calf down there branded T 0
that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I
wish you could come down with me."
We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed
around through this broken country lookin' for evidence. I saw
enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a
sheriff; and, of course, we couldn't go shoot up a peaceful
rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a
four-months' calf all by himself, with the T 0 iron onto him--a
mightyhealthy lookin' calf, too.
"Wonder where HIS mother is!" says I.
"Maybe it's a 'dogie,'" says Larry Eagen--we calls calves whose
mothers have died "dogies."
"No," says I, "I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under
size and poor, and he's layin' around water holes, and he always
has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if
it's an honest calf, there sure ought to be a T 0 cow around
somewhere."
So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge
of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss jump back,
dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of
sight. I jumped my hoss up there tur'ble quick, and looked
over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only
about fifteen foot down, but I couldn't see bottom 'count of some
brush.
"Are you all right?" I yells.
"Yes, yes!" cries Larry, "but for the love of God, get down here
as
quick as you can."
I hopped off my hoss and scrambled down somehow.
"Hurt?" says I, as soon as I lit.
"Not a bit--look here."
There was a dead cow with the Lazy Y on her flank.
"And a bullet-hole in her forehead," adds Larry. "And, look
here, that T 0 calf was bald-faced, and so was this cow."
"Reckon we found our sleepers," says I.
So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the
barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the rim, waitin'
until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a
chance to get up. We were talkin' back and forth when, all at
once, Larry shouted again.
"Big game this time," he yells. "Here's a cave and a mountain
lion squallin' in it."
I slid down to him at once, and we drew our six-shooters and went
up to the cave openin', right under the rim-rock. There, sure
enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint
cryin' like woman.
"First chance," claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees
at the entrance.
"Well, damn me!" he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no
attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In a minute he
backs out, carryin' a three-year-old goat.
"We seem to he in for adventures to-day," says he. "Now, where
do you suppose that came from, and how did it get here?"
"Well," says I, "I've followed lion tracks where they've carried
yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a goose. They're
tur'ble strong."
"But where did she come from?" he wonders.
"As for that," says I, "don't you remember now that T 0 outfit
had a yearlin' kid when it came into the country?"
"That's right," says he. "It's only a mile down the canon. I'll
and had started in runnin' cattle in the Soda Springs Valley.
Larry Eagen and I rode together those days, and that's how I got
to know him pretty well. One day, over in the Elm Flat, we ran
smack on this Texas outfit again, headed north. This time I was
on my own range, and I knew where I stood, so I could show a
little more curiosity in the case.
"Well, you got this far," says I.
"Yes," says they.
"Where you headed?"
"Over towards the hills."
"What to do?"
"Make a ranch, raise some truck; perhaps buy a few cows."
They went on.
"Truck" says I to Larry, "is fine prospects in this country."
He sat on his horse looking after them.
"I'm sorry for them" says he. "It must he mighty" target="_blank" title="a.万能的；全能的">almighty hard
scratchin'."
Well, we rode the range for upwards of two year. In that time we
saw our Texas friends--name of Hahn--two or three times in
Willets, and heard of them off and on. They bought an old brand
of Steve McWilliams for seventy-five dollars, carryin' six or
eight head of cows. After that, from time to time, we heard of
them buying more--two or three head from one man, and two or
three from another. They branded them all with that McWilliams
iron--T 0--so, pretty soon, we began to see the cattle on the
range.
Now, a good cattleman knows cattle just as well as you know
people, and he can tell them about as far off. Horned critters
look alike to you, but even in a country supportin' a good many
thousand head, a man used to the business can recognise most
every individual as far as he can see him. Some is better than
others at it. I suppose you really have to be brought up to it.
So we boys at the Lazy Y noted all the cattle with the new T 0,
and could estimate pretty close that the Hahn outfit might own,
maybe, thirty-five head all told.
That was all very well, and nobody had any kick comin'. Then one
day in the spring, we came across our first "sleeper."
What's a sleeper? A sleeper is a calf that has been ear-marked,
but not branded. Every owner has a certain brand, as you know,
and then he crops and slits the ears in a certain way, too. In
that manner he don't have to look at the brand, except to
corroborate the ears; and, as the critter generally sticks his
ears up inquirin'-like to anyone ridin' up, it's easy to know the
brand without lookin' at it, merely from the ear-marks. Once in
a great while, when a man comes across an unbranded calf, and it
ain't handy to build a fire, he just ear-marks it and let's the
brandin' go till later. But it isn't done often, and our outfit
had strict orders never to make sleepers.
Well, one day in the spring, as I say, Larry and me was ridin',
when we came across a Lazy Y cow and calf. The little fellow was
ear-marked all right, so we rode on, and never would have
discovered nothin' if a bush rabbit hadn't jumped and scared the
calf right across in front of our hosses. Then we couldn't help
but see that there wasn't no brand.
Of course we roped him and put the iron on him. I took the
chance to look at his ears,, and saw that the marking had been
done quite recent, so when we got in that night I reported to
Buck Johnson that one of the punchers was gettin' lazy and
sleeperin'. Naturally he went after the man who had done it;
but every puncher swore up and down, and back and across, that
he'd branded every calf he'd had a rope on that spring. We put
it down that someone was lyin', and let it go at that.
And then, about a week later, one of the other boys reported a
Triangle-H sleeper. The Triangle-H was the Goodrich brand, so we
didn't have nothin' to do with that. Some of them might be
sleeperin' for all we knew. Three other cases of the same kind
we happened across that same spring.
So far, so good. Sleepers runnin' in such numbers was a little
astonishin', but nothin' suspicious. Cattle did well that
summer, and when we come to round up in the fall, we cut out
maybe a dozen of those T 0 cattle that had strayed out of that
Hahn country. Of the dozen there was five grown cows, and seven
yearlin's.
"My Lord, Jed," says Buck to me, "they's a heap of these
youngsters comin' over our way."
But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old
one that's got his range established, we didn't lay no great
store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that's
all there was to it.
Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we
came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but
Buck, who was with me, had somethin' on his mind. Finally he
turned back and roped her, and threw her.
"Look here, Jed," says he, "what do you make of this?"
I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned.
"Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet," says I.
"Might be," says he, "but her heels lame that way makes it look
more like hobbles."
So we didn't say nothin' more about that neither, until just by
luck we came on another lame cow. We threw her, too.
"Well, what do you think of this one?" Buck Johnson asks me.
"The feet is pretty well tore up," says I, "and down to the
quick, but I've seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when
they come down out of the mountains."
You sabe what that meant, don't you? You see, a rustler will
take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can't follow, and
then he'll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his
iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin'
of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what
had happened.
We rode on mightythoughtful. There couldn't be much doubt that
cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked,
hopin' that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then,
after the calf was weaned, and quit followin' of his mother, the
rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark
to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin' together a bunch
of cattle cheap.
But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might
be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican
line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [2] livin'
near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little
cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn't
shy very hard at a little sleeperin' on the side. Buck Johnson
told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big
owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves
for the number of cows.
[2] "Oilers"--Greasers--Mexicans.
The Texas outfit I'm tellin' you about had settled up above in
this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals
this morning. They'd built them a 'dobe, and cleared some land,
and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa.
Nobody never rode over his way very much, 'cause the country was
most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the
southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin' a little.
I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and
they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One
evenin' he took me to one side.
"Look here, Jed," says he, "I know you pretty well, and I'm not
ashamed to say that I'm all new at this cattle business--in fact,
I haven't been at it more'n a year. What should be the
proportion of cows to calves anyhow?"
"There ought to be about twice as many cows as there're calves,"
I tells him.
"Then, with only about fifty head of grown cows, there ought not
to be an equal number of yearlin's?"
"I should say not," says I. "What are you drivin' at?"
"Nothin' yet," says he.
A few days later he tackled me again.
"Jed," says he, "I'm not good, like you fellows are, at knowin'
one cow from another, but there's a calf down there branded T 0
that I'd pretty near swear I saw with an X Y cow last month. I
wish you could come down with me."
We got that fixed easy enough, and for the next month rammed
around through this broken country lookin' for evidence. I saw
enough to satisfy me to a moral certainty, but nothin' for a
sheriff; and, of course, we couldn't go shoot up a peaceful
rancher on mere suspicion. Finally, one day, we run on a
four-months' calf all by himself, with the T 0 iron onto him--a
mightyhealthy lookin' calf, too.
"Wonder where HIS mother is!" says I.
"Maybe it's a 'dogie,'" says Larry Eagen--we calls calves whose
mothers have died "dogies."
"No," says I, "I don't hardly think so. A dogie is always under
size and poor, and he's layin' around water holes, and he always
has a big, sway belly onto him. No, this is no dogie; and, if
it's an honest calf, there sure ought to be a T 0 cow around
somewhere."
So we separated to have a good look. Larry rode up on the edge
of a little rimrock. In a minute I saw his hoss jump back,
dodgin' a rattlesnake or somethin', and then fall back out of
sight. I jumped my hoss up there tur'ble quick, and looked
over, expectin' to see nothin' but mangled remains. It was only
about fifteen foot down, but I couldn't see bottom 'count of some
brush.
"Are you all right?" I yells.
"Yes, yes!" cries Larry, "but for the love of God, get down here
as
quick as you can."
I hopped off my hoss and scrambled down somehow.
"Hurt?" says I, as soon as I lit.
"Not a bit--look here."
There was a dead cow with the Lazy Y on her flank.
"And a bullet-hole in her forehead," adds Larry. "And, look
here, that T 0 calf was bald-faced, and so was this cow."
"Reckon we found our sleepers," says I.
So, there we was. Larry had to lead his cavallo down the
barranca to the main canon. I followed along on the rim, waitin'
until a place gave me a chance to get down, too, or Larry a
chance to get up. We were talkin' back and forth when, all at
once, Larry shouted again.
"Big game this time," he yells. "Here's a cave and a mountain
lion squallin' in it."
I slid down to him at once, and we drew our six-shooters and went
up to the cave openin', right under the rim-rock. There, sure
enough, were fresh lion tracks, and we could hear a little faint
cryin' like woman.
"First chance," claims Larry, and dropped to his hands and knees
at the entrance.
"Well, damn me!" he cries, and crawls in at once, payin' no
attention to me tellin' him to be more cautious. In a minute he
backs out, carryin' a three-year-old goat.
"We seem to he in for adventures to-day," says he. "Now, where
do you suppose that came from, and how did it get here?"
"Well," says I, "I've followed lion tracks where they've carried
yearlin's across their backs like a fox does a goose. They're
tur'ble strong."
"But where did she come from?" he wonders.
"As for that," says I, "don't you remember now that T 0 outfit
had a yearlin' kid when it came into the country?"
"That's right," says he. "It's only a mile down the canon. I'll
- curiosity [,kjuəri´ɔsiti]
n.好奇；奇事；珍品 (初中英语单词) - estimate [´estimət, ´estimeit] n.估计；评价 vt.估价 (初中英语单词)
- rabbit [´ræbit] n.兔子，野兔 (初中英语单词)
- amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
- suspicion [sə´spiʃən] n.怀(猜)疑；嫌疑 (初中英语单词)
- healthy [´helθi] a.健康的 (初中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- strict [strikt] a.严厉的；精确的 (高中英语单词)
- suspicious [sə´spiʃəs] a.可疑的，多疑的 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtful [´θɔ:tfəl] a.深思的；体贴的 (高中英语单词)
- certainty [´sə:tənti] n.确实(性)；确信 (高中英语单词)
- almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
- upwards [´ʌpwədz] ad.=upward (英语四级单词)
- calves [kɑ:vz] calf的复数 (英语四级单词)
- cautious [´kɔ:ʃəs] a.小心的；谨慎的 (英语四级单词)
- sleeper [´sli:pə] n.睡眠者；(铁路)枕木 (英语六级单词)
- hobble [´hɔbəl] vi.跛行 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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