Stories from James Greet:
By the time I had reached my teens, I was doing a lot of riding. There were various cattle roundups, and also, it was usually my job to bring home the strays. Often , I would be gone for days at a time.
One year we got word that we had a yearling heifer up at Earl Holland’s ranch. That was thirty miles south of our place with the last ten miles up on the mountain from the Nowood Store. It fell my lot to get the animal.
The first day I went as far as Nowood and stayed at the Big Teepee. The next morning, I went to Holland’s place and found Earl out doing the feeding with his team and sled. He pointed the heifer out to me and said he could get his saddle horse and help me get her started. I told Earl to wait and I would try. It is not very easy to separate one critter from the feed ground and the herd. I took my time and gently worked this critter to the outside edge by the exit trail. At the right moment, I gave the rush act, and it worked perfectly, she never gave me any trouble.
This trail joined the county road at the Nowood Store. I made it to Deter’s place on the north side of Mahogany Buttes by nightfall. It is still a good day’s trailing to the home ranch. The Deter outfit was well known to be early risers, so with breakfast over, I had my critter on the road by sunup. This was in the dead of winter.
A lot of bringing the stray cattle home fell to me. Some had wandered a long way. But this suited me just fine, for I loved cowboying. It meant long hours without a noon meal, but I didn’t mind, for that was the way it was. I can honestly say that I can’t remember of ever being really hungry.
As usual, a good one. So grateful to know locations he writes of.
Thanks, Carol.
These are such fun and interesting reads. Being gone for several days and on his own as a teen…across so much open country is pretty amazing! But, as he wrote, he “loved cowboying”! Another great story,
These are the best! You can just picture yourself there with him!
How hard is it to keep one cow going? Would he have had a lasso on it and had it in tow?
Once she knew she was heading home, she probably was easy enough to trail along. A cow would have fought a rope, so that technique wasn’t used.
I absolutely LOVE these posts. I wish I had been printing them out and saved them to re-read later. I expecially like that I know the locations Mr Greet talks about. Thank you, Carol.