Page:Boys' Life Mar 1, 1911.djvu/26

26 loose, and drives the beef out to the nearest railway for shipment and sale. That is the beef round-up.

All summer the cattle have been straying on the highest ground they could reach—the best grass; but late in the autumn our Mr. Jones sends out his riders to drive them down to the valleys away from the deeper drifts and fiercer winds, there to feed them, if necessary, from the haystacks.

Such is the honorable profession of punching cows.

It's very pleasant to look back on the old days, when, as a traveler, I came to some camp or ranch, and the cowboys would show me where to water my horses and turn them loose to graze. At supper-time they would bid me "walk up to the chuck and grab a bone."

There were fresh beef, hot bread, stewed fruit, cake, and fruit pies—a better meal than one ever got in the towns; but the cowboy never, never milks a range cow, unless he is tired of life and wants to go out of it quick. There was no milk or butter.

After supper the boys would smoke, and we talked horse or cow, or someone started a song.

The Cowboy songs arc always very dismal, and between verses one heard the wolves (coyotes) yowling to the moon. After a time we rolled down our beds under the stars, and then talked horse until we fell asleep. Proper sleep, too—there is no sleep like that in the open air.

Long before dawn came breakfast, and the stars were still shining when the horse wrangler brought in the ponies for each man to rope his morning mount. The first gray light would find all the riders in the saddle, the foreman scattering out his men to gather cattle, while the cook and the wrangler finished their breakfast together.

So I would saddle up, load my pack-horse, and hit the trail, hoping in the great lone land to find such another camp that night, perhaps fifty miles away.

It has been my good fortune to traverse the stock range from north to south, more than three thousand miles, and once or twice in a very amateurish way to earn my bread as a rider.

Looking back through the memories of many years I cannot recall any cowboy who was not at heart a most gallant gentleman. But now the sun is setting on the range, and this heroic trade is almost finished.

At a railway station a few weeks ago an old lady, apparently in a great burry, went up to a porter and said:

"Can I take this train to W?"

"Well, I dunno, marm," replied the porter, as he proceeded to bang the doors. "You see, the engine generally takes it; but I should think the company wouldn't mind you having a try for once."

"It is well to leave something for those who come after us," quoted a boy as he turned over a barrel in the 'way of some boys who were chasing him.

An "igloo" is a hut made of snow, which is much used by Arctic explorers in the great open snow plains, where no trees or stones are to be got. It is a good thing for Scouts to build in the winter. The simplest way to build an igloo, where the snow is not sufficiently frozen as to be cut into blocks, is this:

You start rolling a big snowball until it is as big as you can well lift. It is best to make it rather square-shaped than round—it gets more solid that way.

Then, when you have made a whole lot of these blocks, pile them together in a big heap about 6 ft. high, 10 ft. long, and about 8 ft. wide, and jam them well together, filling up all cracks and holes with more snow. Then, with a shovel or piece of board, smooth off the surface of the heap until it looks neat and shaped like a low beehive.



When the outside is neatly finished, get a lot of sticks all exactly the same length, about 2 ft. long, and stick them into the snow-heap and push them in till their ends are flush with the snow. You want a lot of them, until there is one every two or three feet all over the snow-heap.



Now you tunnel into the heap. First make a low-arched doorway, then dig out the whole of the inside of the heap, passing the dug-out snow out through the doorway.

Whenever you come across the end of one of your sticks on the inside, don't dig any more there, as the stick gives the thickness at which the wall should be kept.

When you have made one hut like this you can add more rooms to it by building more in the same way close up against it, so that you can cut doers leading from one into the next.

"George!" exclaimed Jimmy to his brother of that name.

"Don't bother me," replied George; "I'm reading an absorbing article."

"What is it about?"

"Sponges."