The Light of Western Stars

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"Good mawnin', Miss Hammond. Hope you slept well. You sure were
tired last night. I imagine you'll find this old rancho house as
cold as a barn. It'll warm up directly. Al's gone with the boys
and Bill. We're to ride down on the range after a while when
your baggage comes."

Florence wore a woolen blouse with a scarf round her neck, a
short corduroy divided skirt, and boots; and while she talked she
energetically heaped up the burning wood in the fireplace, and
laid Madeline's clothes at the foot of the bed, and heated a rug
and put that on the floor by the bedside. And lastly, with a
sweet, direct smile, she said:

"Al told me--and I sure saw myself--that you weren't used to
being without your maid. Will you let me help you?"

"Thank you, I am going to be my own maid for a while. I expect I
do appear a very helpless individual, but really I do not feel
so. Perhaps I have had just a little too much waiting on."

"All right. Breakfast will be ready soon, and after that we'll
look about the place."

Madeline was charmed with the old Spanish house, and the more she
saw of it the more she thought what a delightful home it could be
made. All the doors opened into a courtyard, or patio, as
Florence called it. The house was low, in the shape of a
rectangle, and so immense in size that Madeline wondered if it
had been a Spanish barracks. Many of the rooms were dark,
without windows, and they were empty. Others were full of
ranchers' implements and sacks of grain and bales of hay.
Florence called these last alfalfa. The house itself appeared
strong and well preserved, and it was very picturesque. But in
the living-rooms were only the barest necessities, and these were
worn out and comfortless.

However, when Madeline went outdoors she forgot the cheerless,
bare interior. Florence led the way out on a porch and waved a
hand at a vast, colored void. "That's what Bill likes," she
said.

At first Madeline could not tell what was sky and what was land.
The immensity of the scene stunned her faculties of conception.
She sat down in one of the old rocking-chairs and looked and
looked, and knew that she was not grasping the reality of what
stretched wondrously before her.

"We're up at the edge of the foothills," Florence said. "You
remember we rode around the northern end of the mountain range?
Well, that's behind us now, and you look down across the line
into Arizona and Mexico. That long slope of gray is the head of
the San Bernardino Valley. Straight across you see the black
Chiricahua Mountains, and away down to the south the Guadalupe
Mountains. That awful red gulf between is the desert, and far,
far beyond the dim, blue peaks are the Sierra Madres in Mexico."

Madeline listened and gazed with straining eyes, and wondered if
this was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different
from all else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so
grand.

"It'll sure take you a little while to get used to being up high
and seeing so much," explained Florence. "That's the secret--
we're up high, the air is clear, and there's the whole bare world
beneath us. Don't it somehow rest you? Well, it will. Now see
those specks in the valley. They are stations, little towns.
The railroad goes down that way. The largest speck is
Chiricahua. It's over forty miles by trail. Here round to the
north you can see Don Carlos's rancho. He's fifteen miles off,
and I sure wish he were a thousand. That little green square
about half-way between here and Don Carlos--that's Al's ranch.
Just below us are the adobe houses of the Mexicans. There's a
church, too. And here to the left you see Stillwell's corrals
and bunk-houses and his stables all falling to pieces. The ranch
has gone to ruin. All the ranches are going to ruin. But most
of them are little one-horse affairs. And here--see that cloud of
dust down in the valley? It's the round-up. The boys are there,
and the cattle. Wait, I'll get the glasses."

By their aid Madeline saw in the foreground a great, dense herd
of cattle with dark, thick streams and dotted lines of cattle
leading in every direction. She saw streaks and clouds of dust,
running horses, and a band of horses grazing; and she descried
horsemen standing still like sentinels, and others in action.

"The round-up! I want to know all about it--to see it," declared
Madeline. "Please tell me what it means, what it's for, and then
take me down there."

"It's sure a sight, Miss Hammond. I'll be glad to take you down,
but I fancy you'll not want to go close. Few Eastern people who
regularly eat their choice cuts of roast beef and porterhouse
have any idea of the open range and the struggle cattle have to
live and the hard life of cowboys. It'll sure open your eyes,
Miss Hammond. I'm glad you care to know. Your brother would
have made a big success in this cattle business if it hadn't been
for crooked work by rival ranchers. He'll make it yet, in spite
of them."

"Indeed he shall," replied Madeline. "But tell me, please, all
about the round-up."

"Well, in the first place, every cattleman has to have a brand to
identify his stock. Without it no cattleman, nor half a hundred
cowboys, if he had so many, could ever recognize all the cattle
in a big herd. There are no fences on our ranges. They are all
open to everybody. Some day I hope we'll be rich enough to fence
a range. The different herds graze together. Every calf has to
be caught, if possible, and branded with the mark of its mother.
That's no easy job. A maverick is an unbranded calf that has
been weaned and shifts for itself. The maverick then belongs to
the man who finds it and brands it. These little calves that
lose their mothers sure have a cruel time of it. Many of them
die. Then the coyotes and wolves and lions prey on them. Every
year we have two big round-ups, but the boys do some branding all
the year. A calf should be branded as soon as it's found. This
is a safeguard against cattle-thieves. We don't have the
rustling of herds and bunches of cattle like we used to. But
there's always the calf-thief, and always will be as long as
there's cattle-raising. The thieves have a good many cunning
tricks. They kill the calf's mother or slit the calf's tongue so
it can't suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a
calf and watch it till it's big enough to fare for itself, and
then brand it. They make imperfect brands and finish them at a
later time.

"We have our big round-up in the fall, when there's plenty of
grass and water, and all the riding-stock as well as the cattle
are in fine shape. The cattlemen in the valley meet with their
cowboys and drive in all the cattle they can find. Then they
brand and cut out each man's herd and drive it toward home. Then
they go on up or down the valley, make another camp, and drive in
more cattle. It takes weeks. There are so many Greasers with
little bands of stock, and they are crafty and greedy. Bill says
he knows Greaser cowboys, vaqueros, who never owned a steer or a
cow, and now they've got growing herds. The same might be said
of more than one white cowboy. But there's not as much of that as
there used to be."

"And the horses? I want to know about them," said Madeline, when
Florence paused.

"Oh, the cow-ponies! Well, they sure are interesting. Broncos,
the boys call them. Wild! they're wilder than the steers they
have to chase. Bill's got broncos heah that never have been
broken and never will be. And not every boy can ride them,
either. The vaqueros have the finest horses. Don Carlos has a
black that I'd give anything to own. And he has other fine
stock. Gene Stewart's big roan is a Mexican horse, the swiftest
and proudest I ever saw. I was up on him once and--oh, he can
run! He likes a woman, too, and that's sure something I want in
a horse. I heard Al and Bill talking at breakfast about a horse
for you. They were wrangling. Bill wanted you to have one, and
Al another. It was funny to hear them. Finally they left the
choice to me, until the round-up is over. Then I suppose every
cowboy on the range will offer you his best mount. Come, let's
go out to the corrals and look over the few horses left."

For Madeline the morning hours flew by, with a goodly part of the
time spent on the porch gazing out over that ever-changing vista.
At noon a teamster drove up with her trunks. Then while Florence
helped the Mexican woman get lunch Madeline unpacked part of her
effects and got out things for which she would have immediate
need. After lunch she changed her dress for a riding-habit and,
going outside, found Florence waiting with the horses.

The Western girl's clear eyes seemed to take stock of Madeline's
appearance in one swift, inquisitive glance and then shone with
pleasure.

"You sure look--you're a picture, Miss Hammond. That
riding-outfit is a new one. What it 'd look like on me or
another woman I can't imagine, but on you it's--it's stunning.
Bill won't let you go within a mile of the cowboys. If they see
you that'll be the finish of the round-up."

While they rode down the slope Florence talked about the open
ranges of New Mexico and Arizona.

"Water is scarce," she said. "If Bill could afford to pipe water
down from the mountains he'd have the finest ranch in the
valley."

She went on to tell that the climate was mild in winter and hot
in summer. Warm, sunshiny days prevailed nearly all the year
round. Some summers it rained, and occasionally there would be a
dry year, the dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans. Rain was always
expected and prayed for in the midsummer months, and when it came
the grama-grass sprang up, making the valleys green from mountain
to mountain. The intersecting valleys, ranging between the long
slope of foothills, afforded the best pasture for cattle, and
these were jealously sought by the Mexicans who had only small
herds to look after. Stillwell's cowboys were always chasing
these vaqueros off land that belonged to Stillwell. He owned
twenty thousand acres of unfenced land adjoining the open range.
Don Carlos possessed more acreage than that, and his cattle were
always mingling with Stillwell's. And in turn Don Carlos's
vaqueros were always chasing Stillwell's cattle away from the
Mexican's watering-place. Bad feeling had been manifested for
years, and now relations were strained to the breaking-point.

As Madeline rode along she made good use of her eyes. The soil
was sandy and porous, and she understood why the rain and water
from the few springs disappeared so quickly. At a little
distance the grama-grass appeared thick, but near at hand it was
seen to be sparse. Bunches of greasewood and cactus plants were
interspersed here and there in the grass. What surprised Madeline
was the fact that, though she and Florence had seemed to be
riding quite awhile, they had apparently not drawn any closer to
the round-up. The slope of the valley was noticeable only after
some miles had been traversed. Looking forward, Madeline
imagined the valley only a few miles wide. She would have been
sure she could walk her horse across it in an hour. Yet that
black, bold range of Chiricahua Mountains was distant a long
day's journey for even a hard-riding cowboy. It was only by
looking back that Madeline could grasp the true relation of
things; she could not be deceived by distance she had covered.

Gradually the black dots enlarged and assumed shape of cattle and
horses moving round a great dusty patch. In another half-hour
Madeline rode behind Florence to the outskirts of the scene of
action. They drew rein near a huge wagon in the neighborhood of
which were more than a hundred horses grazing and whistling and
trotting about and lifting heads to watch the new-comers. Four
cowboys stood mounted guard over this drove of horses. Perhaps a
quarter of a mile farther out was a dusty melee. A roar of
tramping hoofs filled Madeline's ears. The lines of marching
cattle had merged into a great, moving herd half obscured by
dust.

"I can make little of what is going on," said Madeline. "I want
to go closer."

They trotted across half the intervening distance, and when
Florence halted again Madeline was still not satisfied and asked
to be taken nearer. This time, before they reined in again, Al
Hammond saw them and wheeled his horse in their direction. He
yelled something which Madeline did not understand, and then
halted them.

"Close enough," he called; and in the din his voice was not very
clear. "It's not safe. Wild steers! I'm glad you came, girls.
Majesty, what do you think of that bunch of cattle?"

Madeline could scarcely reply what she thought, for the noise and
dust and ceaseless action confused her.

"They're milling, Al," said Florence.

"We just rounded them up. They're milling, and that's bad. The
vaqueros are hard drivers. They beat us all hollow, and we drove
some, too." He was wet with sweat, black with dust, and out of
breath. "I'm off now. Flo, my sister will have enough of this
in about two minutes. Take her back to the wagon. I'll tell
Bill you're here, and run in whenever I get a minute."

The bawling and bellowing, the crackling of horns and pounding of
hoofs, the dusty whirl of cattle, and the flying cowboys
disconcerted Madeline and frightened her a little; but she was
intensely interested and meant to stay there until she saw for
herself what that strife of sound and action meant. When she
tried to take in the whole scene she did not make out anything
clearly and she determined to see it little by little.

"Will you stay longer?" asked Florence; and, receiving an
affirmative reply, she warned Madeline: "If a runaway steer or
angry cow comes this way let your horse go. He'll get out of the
way."

That lent the situation excitement, and Madeline became absorbed.
The great mass of cattle seemed to be eddying like a whirlpool,
and from that Madeline understood the significance of the range
word "milling." But when Madeline looked at one end of the herd
she saw cattle standing still, facing outward, and calves
cringing close in fear. The motion of the cattle slowed from the
inside of the herd to the outside and gradually ceased. The roar
and tramp of hoofs and crack of horns and thump of heads also
ceased in degree, but the bawling and bellowing continued. While
she watched, the herd spread, grew less dense, and stragglers
appeared to be about to bolt through the line of mounted cowboys.

From that moment so many things happened, and so swiftly, that
Madeline could not see a tenth of what was going on within
eyesight. It seemed horsemen darted into the herd and drove out
cattle. Madeline pinned her gaze on one cowboy who rode a white
horse and was chasing a steer. He whirled a lasso around his
head and threw it; the rope streaked out and the loop caught the
leg of the steer. The white horse stopped with wonderful
suddenness, and the steer slid in the dust. Quick as a flash the
cowboy was out of the saddle, and, grasping the legs of the steer
before it could rise, he tied them with a rope. It had all been
done almost as quickly as thought. Another man came with what
Madeline divined was a branding-iron. He applied it to the flank
of the steer. Then it seemed the steer was up with a jump,
wildly looking for some way to run, and the cowboy was circling
his lasso. Madeline saw fires in the background, with a man in
charge, evidently heating the irons. Then this same cowboy roped
a heifer which bawled lustily when the hot iron seared its hide.
Madeline saw the smoke rising from the touch of the iron, and the
sight made her shrink and want to turn away, but she resolutely
fought her sensitiveness. She had never been able to bear the
sight of any animal suffering. The rough work in men's lives was
as a sealed book to her; and now, for some reason beyond her
knowledge, she wanted to see and hear and learn some of the
every-day duties that made up those lives.

"Look, Miss Hammond, there's Don Carlos!" said Florence. "Look
at that black horse!"

Madeleine saw a dark-faced Mexican riding by. He was too far
away for her to distinguish his features, but he reminded her of
an Italian brigand. He bestrode a magnificent horse.

Stillwell rode up to the girls then and greeted them in his big
voice.

"Right in the thick of it, hey? Wal, thet's sure fine. I'm glad
to see, Miss Majesty, thet you ain't afraid of a little dust or
smell of burnin' hide an' hair."

"Couldn't you brand the calves without hurting them?" asked
Madeline.

"Haw, haw! Why, they ain't hurt none. They jest bawl for their
mammas. Sometimes, though, we hev to hurt one jest to find which
is his mamma."

"I want to know how you tell what brand to put on those calves
that are separated from their mothers," asked Madeline.

"Thet's decided by the round-up bosses. I've one boss an' Don
Carlos has one. They decide everything, an' they hev to be
obyed. There's Nick Steele, my boss. Watch him! He's ridin' a
bay in among the cattle there. He orders the calves an' steers
to be cut out. Then the cowboys do the cuttin' out an' the
brandin'. We try to divide up the mavericks as near as
possible."

At this juncture Madeline's brother joined the group, evidently
in search of Stillwell.

"Bill, Nels just rode in," he said.

"Good! We sure need him. Any news of Danny Mains?"

"No. Nels said he lost the trail when he got on hard ground."

"Wal, wal. Say, Al, your sister is sure takin' to the round-up.
An' the boys are gettin' wise. See thet sun-of-a-gun Ambrose
cuttin' capers all around. He'll sure do his prettiest. Ambrose
is a ladies' man, he thinks."

The two men and Florence joined in a little pleasant teasing of
Madeline, and drew her attention to what appeared to be really
unnecessary feats of horsemanship all made in her vicinity. The
cowboys evinced their interest in covert glances while recoiling
a lasso or while passing to and fro. It was all too serious for
Madeline to be amused at that moment. She did not care to talk.
She sat her horse and watched.

The lithe, dark vaqueros fascinated her. They were here, there,
everywhere, with lariats flying, horses plunging back, jerking
calves and yearlings to the grass. They were cruel to their
mounts, cruel to their cattle. Madeline winced as the great
silver rowels of the spurs went plowing into the flanks of their
horses. She saw these spurs stained with blood, choked with
hair. She saw the vaqueros break the legs of calves and let them
lie till a white cowboy came along and shot them. Calves were
jerked down and dragged many yards; steers were pulled by one
leg. These vaqueros were the most superb horsemen Madeline had
ever seen, and she had seen the Cossacks and Tatars of the
Russian steppes. They were swift, graceful, daring; they never
failed to catch a running steer, and the lassoes always went
true. What sharp dashes the horses made, and wheelings here and
there, and sudden stops, and how they braced themselves to
withstand the shock!

The cowboys, likewise, showed wonderful horsemanship, and,
reckless as they were, Madeline imagined she saw consideration
for steed and cattle that was wanting in the vaqueros. They
changed mounts oftener than the Mexican riders, and the horses
they unsaddled for fresh ones were not so spent, so wet, so
covered with lather. It was only after an hour or more of
observation that Madeline began to realize the exceedingly
toilsome and dangerous work cowboys had to perform. There was
little or no rest for them. They were continually among wild and
vicious and wide-horned steers. In many instances they owed
their lives to their horses. The danger came mostly when the
cowboy leaped off to tie and brand a calf he had thrown. Some of
the cows charged with lowered, twisting horns. Time and again
Madeline's heart leaped to her throat for fear a man would be
gored. One cowboy roped a calf that bawled loudly. Its mother
dashed in and just missed the kneeling cowboy as he rolled over.
Then he had to run, and he could not run very fast. He was
bow-legged and appeared awkward. Madeline saw another cowboy
thrown and nearly run over by a plunging steer. His horse bolted
as if it intended to leave the range. Then close by Madeline a
big steer went down at the end of a lasso. The cowboy who had
thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his horse began
to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to the
ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer
on the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope
from the steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was
almost frightful for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse.
But she recognized the mastery and skill. Then two horses came
into collision on the run. One horse went down; the rider of the
other was unseated and was kicked before he could get up. This
fellow limped to his mount and struck at him, while the horse
showed his teeth in a vicious attempt to bite.

All the while this ceaseless activity was going on there was a
strange uproar--bawl and bellow, the shock of heavy bodies
meeting and falling, the shrill jabbering of the vaqueros, and
the shouts and banterings of the cowboys. They took sharp orders
and replied in jest. They went about this stern toil as if it
were a game to be played in good humor. One sang a rollicking
song, another whistled, another smoked a cigarette. The sun was
hot, and they, like their horses, were dripping with sweat. The
characteristic red faces had taken on so much dust that cowboys
could not be distinguished from vaqueros except by the difference
in dress. Blood was not wanting on tireless hands. The air was
thick, oppressive, rank with the smell of cattle and of burning
hide.

Madeline began to sicken. She choked with dust, was almost
stifled by the odor. But that made her all the more determined
to stay there. Florence urged her to come away, or at least move
back out of the worst of it. Stillwell seconded Florence.
Madeline, however, smilingly refused. Then her brother said:
"Here, this is making you sick. You're pale." And she replied
that she intended to stay until the day's work ended. Al gave
her a strange look, and made no more comment. The kindly
Stillwell then began to talk.

"Miss Majesty, you're seein' the life of the cattleman an'
cowboy--the real thing--same as it was in the early days. The
ranchers in Texas an' some in Arizona hev took on style,
new-fangled idees thet are good, an' I wish we could follow them.
But we've got to stick to the old-fashioned, open-range
round-up. It looks cruel to you, I can see thet. Wal, mebbe
so, mebbe so. Them Greasers are cruel, thet's certain. Fer thet
matter, I never seen a Greaser who wasn't cruel. But I reckon
all the strenuous work you've seen to-day ain't any tougher than
most any day of a cowboy's life. Long hours on hossback, poor
grub, sleepin' on the ground, lonesome watches, dust an' sun an'
wind an' thirst, day in an' day out all the year round--thet's
what a cowboy has.

"Look at Nels there. See, what little hair he has is snow-white.
He's red an' thin an' hard--burned up. You notice thet hump of
his shoulders. An' his hands, when he gets close--jest take a
peep at his hands. Nels can't pick up a pin. He can't hardly
button his shirt or untie a knot in his rope. He looks sixty
years--an old man. Wal, Nels 'ain't seen forty. He's a young
man, but he's seen a lifetime fer every year. Miss Majesty, it
was Arizona thet made Nels what he is, the Arizona desert an' the
work of a cowman. He's seen ridin' at Canyon Diablo an' the Verdi
an' Tonto Basin. He knows every mile of Aravaipa Valley an' the
Pinaleno country. He's ranged from Tombstone to Douglas. He hed
shot bad white men an' bad Greasers before he was twenty-one.
He's seen some life, Nels has. My sixty years ain't nothin'; my
early days in the Staked Plains an' on the border with Apaches
ain't nothin' to what Nels has seen an' lived through. He's just
come to be part of the desert; you might say he's stone an' fire
an' silence an' cactus an' force. He's a man, Miss Majesty, a
wonderful man. Rough he'll seem to you. Wal, I'll show you
pieces of quartz from the mountains back of my ranch an' they're
thet rough they'd cut your hands. But there's pure gold in them.
An' so it is with Nels an' many of these cowboys.

"An' there's Price--Monty Price. Monty stands fer Montana, where
he hails from. Take a good look at him, Miss Majesty. He's been
hurt, I reckon. Thet accounts fer him bein' without hoss or
rope; an' thet limp. Wal, he's been ripped a little. It's sure
rare an seldom thet a cowboy gets foul of one of them thousands
of sharp horns; but it does happen."

Madeline saw a very short, wizened little man, ludicrously
bow-legged, with a face the color and hardness of a burned-out
cinder. He was hobbling by toward the wagon, and one of his
short, crooked legs dragged.

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