Reminiscing XXI

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

(continued)

The Big Dipper rotates counter clockwise around the North Star. In the early days, the “night hawk” men used it as a timepiece to know when to change the guard.

The wise men of the East traveled by night to follow their star to Bethlehem. Also, Joseph and Mary made their flight into Egypt under the cover of darkness, as they were instructed to do.

Night time has its beauty. Everything was going smoothly, until we were approaching the buildings at the Nowood Store. My horses decided that it would be much too spooky to go by them. I tried urging them, but no luck. You just don’t run horses in the dark, so I had to follow them. They turned west towards the big bluff.

After some distance, they decided to cross a deep gulch. I could feel the dust roll up in my face, and feel my horse sliding to the bottom. Pretty soon they decided to climb out. That was also very steep, for I had to lean away forward and grab my horse’s mane to stay on. Maybe it was a good thing it was dark, so that I couldn’t see!

Back on top, we angled back to the county road. We came in well below the store buildings, all in one piece. Everything went well the rest of the way home. When I hung up my saddle in the barn, it was one o’clock in the morning. I didn’t bother about eating, just went to bed to catch a few winks before breakfast. I was tired, but pleased to be home, the end of my forty-one hours in the saddle.

Sometimes Uncle Fred would go to Omaha with the beef. He would ride in the caboose of the stock train. When he was through with his saddle horse at Lysite, he would turn the horse loose and let him make his way home alone.

In preparation for this, Fred would put his stirrups up in the seat of the saddle and tie them together. Then he would make sure the saddle was set properly and cinched correctly. Then he would take the bridle off and tie it securely on the saddle, and let his horse go for home.

The reason Uncle Fred did all this was so if anyone saw the horse, they could see that his rider wasn’t lying somewhere injured and be alarmed.

At the home ranch, dad would know about when Fred’s horse would be in, and would go out to the pasture gate and bring the horse in and unsaddle him and turn him loose. A horse has a strong homing instinct to return to where he was raised.

Find me here!

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