Stories of the West . to hold in theherd; but the drift took us along to the corralsalready spoken of, whose entrances were luckilyto windward. As soon as we reached the iirstwe cut off part of the herd, and turned it within;and after again doing this with the second, wewere able to put all the remaining animals intothe third. The instant the cattle were housedfive-sixths of the horsemen started back at fullspeed for the wagons; the rest of us barelyw^aited to put up the bars and make the corralssecure before galloping after them. We had toride right in the teeth of the driving storm; andonce
Stories of the West . to hold in theherd; but the drift took us along to the corralsalready spoken of, whose entrances were luckilyto windward. As soon as we reached the iirstwe cut off part of the herd, and turned it within;and after again doing this with the second, wewere able to put all the remaining animals intothe third. The instant the cattle were housedfive-sixths of the horsemen started back at fullspeed for the wagons; the rest of us barelyw^aited to put up the bars and make the corralssecure before galloping after them. We had toride right in the teeth of the driving storm; andonce at the w^agons we made small delay in crawl-ing under our blankets, damp though the latterwere, for we were ourselves far too wet, stifi andcold not to hail with grateful welcome any kindof shelter from the wind and the rain. All animals were benumbed by the violence ofthis gale of cold rain; a prairie chicken rose fromunder my horses feet so heavily that, thought- \\\ \ 11 w «n ????; i)i;ii«,aiiiiiiRa »j,. In a stampede. THE ROUND-UP 199 lessly striking at it, I cut it down with my whip;while when a jack rabbit got up ahead of us, itwas barely able to limp clumsily out of our though there is much work and hardship,rough fare, monotony and exposure connectedwith the round-up, yet there are few men whodo not look forward to it and back to it withpleasure. The only fault to be found is that thehours of work are so long that one does not usu-ally have enough time to sleep. The food, ifrough, is good; beef, bread, pork, beans, coffeeor tea, always canned tomatoes, and often rice,canned corn, or sauce made from dried men are good-humored, bold and thoroughlyinterested in their business, continually vyingwith one another in the effort to see which cando the work best. It is superbly health-giving,and is full of excitement and adventure, callingfor the exhibition of pluck, self-reliance, hardi-hood, and dashing horsemanship; and of allforms of physical labor the
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Keywords: ., bookauthorroosevelttheodore1858, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
