Reminiscing XVI

This story is from James Greet, written in 1991 about his life as a cowboy in the 1940’s.

Sometime early one fall, I was to go down to a place on Spring Creek to get two heifers that belonged to Allan Egbert. This would be a full days job. I was told just what pasture they were in, and also warned that the red one was a real “brush popper”, that she was next to impossible to get out even with a good dog, which I didn’t have.

When I reached the pasture gate, I left it open as part of the strategy that I had in mind. My next move was to locate them before they saw me. This, I did. There they were, grazing in a small clearing, so far, so good. I planned to rope the “brush popper” before she got to the brush patch. I could see that I had better rope her on the first throw, because I wouldn’t have time for a second loop.

So I came at them at a gallop. As I had hoped, they were so startled, that they didn’t know which way to run for a couple of seconds. I was up on them before they got very far. I made a perfect catch, and now I had the heifer under control. I led her out of the open gate against her wishes, and a little way farther, I tied her to a big sagebrush. Then I went back and got the other heifer, no problem. I shut the gate and untied the “brush popper”, but left my rope on her for a mile or so. She was settled down by then, so I took my rope off of her and all went well. I felt rather good for the success of my plan. It was a pleasant day, and I was pleased to be on the trail, mounted on a good horse and just trailing the two heifers. There was some surprised looks when I came in home with both “critters” that evening.

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