This story is from James Greet, written in 1991 about his life as a cowboy in the 1940’s.
(continued from last week)
We got to the reservoir rather early. Because the grazing that day had been very scarce, Uncle Fred had arranged to buy a load of hay to feed our beef herd and our horses.
There is no enclosure here, so we would need to “night hawk” our herd that night. That isn’t anything new for a cowboy, only this time it held a surprise for us. Uncle Fred volunteered for the first watch. That would be until midnight. George and I would take the rest of the night.
Uncle Fred sat on the ground to rest a little, and went off to sleep. When he woke up, the cattle were nowhere to be found!
The only thing to do would be to call George and me to help find the escapees. So George and I got up and saddled up our horses, and were off to join the search. There were only two flashlights in camp. George and Fred had one and I had the other one. Fred said “we will search in this direction and you go that way.” I had a hunch that they would backtrack. I got off my horse to get a look at the tracks and found, indeed, that they confirmed my hunch. So I took out to overtake them.
After quite a distance, there they were. They had stopped just where the trail dropped down into the dry creek bed. They had all bedded down, and were contentedly chewing their cuds from the hay that they had eaten.
I roused them all up and started them back. I had trailed the errant herd some distance when George and Fred joined me. They were just as pleased as I was to have the herd in custody again.
It was getting close to daylight when we arrived back in camp. George and I just left our boots on and layed down for a short time. Then it was time for breakfast and then off to the stockyards, where we would sort the cattle into separate pens, such as the steers in one pen, and the heifers in another.
If the buyer of the steers had agreed on a price beforehand, at so much a pound, we weighed out at the stockyards. We were anxious to get them across the scales to weigh their best before they shrank anymore than we could help.
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I have posted this before, but here’s a photo from 1948 of the truck loaded for its return from Lysite.
The back reads: “Lysite Greet Brothers (as we were called back then) Ford truck hauling camp back from Lysite, Wyoming after loading steer yearlings on train. On way back, John’s horse “Spinner” jumped out but was OK. 1948″
Find me here!
I’m always impressed at hoe sharp James Greet was. He used his head to could “think like the herd” to know where to look for them. Impressive.
Again, I marvel at the skill of James Greet’s writings. What a cowman he must have been!
Finding those cows in the dark by flashlight, is amazing to me, especially if they were quiet and chewing their cud.
Great story and great photo of an old pick up truck, packed horses. I am enjoying going “back in time” with all these adventures.
Love these stories! I can’t imagine trying to find the cows in the dark!
And what a photo. They have the horses stacked in there tight. And open air to boot that is too funny. They must have been fairly tired and calm horses…
Only one to jump!