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Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories
Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan «Outlaw» and Other Stories
To My Mother:
Who shared with me many of the dangers and hardships of the old days on the ranges of the Southwest, these stories are affectionately dedicated.
Washington, D. C.September 1st, 1919.
SUNRISE ON THE DESERT
Towards the east, the God of day,
Like some great red-eyed dragon, tops the rugged range.
Before his golden beams, the gray
Of dawn creeps slowly backward, till the magic change
Sweeps night away.
The desert stirs, and wakes.
Strange-fashioned things come slipping into sight.
High overhead a buzzard idly wings,
A lonely raven robed in shades of night
"Caws" hoarsely to its mates.
Perched on a nearby stone,
A lizard, swift as light, and clad in colors gay,
Pumps slowly up and down.
A horned toad, with crown of thorns, comes slithering by,
And then is gone.
Atop of yonder rocky hill
A lone coyote, skulker of the desert wastes,
Greets the first beams with shrill
And piercing "yips," then hastes
To find his morning kill.
A wandering honeybee,
Drunk with nectar from a Palo Verde's yellow bloom,
Goes stagg'ring by.
The air is heavy with the desert's sweet perfume
From flower and tree.
THE BLUE-ROAN "OUTLAW"
A Tale of the "Hashknife" Range
By permission The Breeder's Gazette, Chicago, III
"Say, Bill, there's that old blue-roan, droop-horned cow that allus runs over on the Coyote wash. Reckon she ain't got a calf somers' hereabout?"
"Like as not," replied Bill, "an' I'll bet it's a blue-roan, too, for she's raised a blue calf reg'lar fer these last four or five years. There's a little hole of water clos't to where she's a-grazin' an' it's a sure shot the calf's hid away in that tall grass down there clos't to it."
The two cowboys rode slowly down the gentle slope toward the cow, which watched them eagerly, but with the cunning of the brute made no sign or motion to show where her baby was hidden. When, however, one of the boys played the time-worn trick on her by barking like a dog, it was too much for her peace of mind. With a mad bellow of defiance she raced toward the spot where the little fellow was hidden, exactly as the boys knew she would.
The calf, with the instinct of the brute already working in his little four-day-old brain, did not move, but lay there as quietly as if he were dead, and, not until the horsemen rode almost onto him in the deep grass, did they discover his hiding place.
The mother, with the fear of man too strong in her heart to stand by her guns, ran off a few yards from the spot and the calf followed, bawling loudly, the already awakened man-fear strong within him.
"He's a sure blue-roan all right," said Bill. "Say, won't that old Hashknife iron loom up big on them ribs some day?" he asked, for a brand on a roan animal shows much more plainly than on a hide of any other color.
"It sure will," replied his companion; "better leave 'em here till tomorrow an' we can swing around this a-way an' git 'em."
So the boys rode on across the prairie, and the droop-horned blue with her baby rested in peace that day and night.
It was here, away out on the "staked plains," those mysterious regions of the great Southwest, and far back from the thin line of settlements that fringed the Pecos River, in southeastern New Mexico, that the "blue-roan outlaw" first saw the light.