Reminiscing XVII

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

TRAILING BEEF TO THE RAILROAD

It was a common practice for the stockmen of the area to trail their “for sale” livestock to Lysite and then by railroad to the Omaha stock market.

We rounded up the cattle in our summer pasture and cut out the beef herd. Then the next day, we trailed them eighteen miles to the home ranch where we would lay over for three days. Sunday morning we would hit the trail with the beef, and camp that night in a little triangle pasture by the road which belonged to the “Bear” George Ranch. Monday morning would find us on the move again for another day’s journey. That night we would camp at Mahogany Buttes. This was an ideal site, as our beef herd was not corralled here for the night. We made camp right by the road for a reason. The canyon was very narrow here and the only was back was the county road. We would hear any attempt of the cattle to go back where they came from.

On ahead a quarter of a mile, there was a lane for a ways. To keep our cattle from escaping this way, George and I would put our bedroll at the mouth of the lane. It was after dark when we got around to selecting a place to put our bedroll. The middle of the road seemed to be a good smooth place, and it would keep the cattle from escaping. That might have been good thinking, but poor judgment. Someone of the Orchard outfit came driving down the road in the middle of the night, and they almost didn’t see us in time to keep from running over us. At daylight, we were up for the day. We watered the horses and put their nose bags on with their oats, then it was time for our breakfast.

I should say a little about the preparation that needs to be done for a six day trip of this kind. We used a truck to haul all of the necessary items.

There was hay for the horses. Probably five, as one is a spare in case a horse should become sick, or go lame. Bedrolls for everyone. A good sized wooden grub box, that mice couldn’t invade, with all of the necessary items for cooking the meals. So it took some careful planning to get everything together. Oh, yes, we would put the tent in, just in case the weather turned bad.

(to be continued)

(side comments: They continued this until Vernon was a year or two old, then began trucking their cattle. Johnny said he never did ride the train with the cattle to Omaha which he always regretted not doing. Johnny also would tell me that I would have loved doing this… trailing cattle and camping out… he knew me well!)

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