Cowboy Wisdom (3 page)

Oh, beat the drum slowly

And play the fife lowly,

Play the dead march as you carry me along;

Take me to the green valley,

There lay the sod o’er me,

For I’m a young cowboy and know I’ve done wrong.

—“The Cowboy’s Lament” T
RADITIONAL

They say there will be a great round-up,

And cowboys, like dogies, will stand,

To be mavericked by the Riders of Judgment

Who are posted and know every brand.

I know there’s many a stray cowboy

Who’ll be lost in at the great final sale,

When he might have gone in green pastures

had he known the dim narrow trail.

I wonder if ever a cowboy

Stood ready for that Judgment Day

And could say to the Boss of the Riders,

“I’m ready, come drive me away.”

They say He will never forget you,

That He knows every action and look;

So, for safety, you’d better get branded,

Have your name in his big Tally Book,

To be shipped to that bright mystic region,

Over there in the green pastures to lie,

And be led by the crystal still waters

To the home in the sweet by-and-by.

The road to that far happy region

Is a dim narrow trail, so they say;

But the bright one that leads to perdition

Is posted and blazed all the way.

—T
RADITIONAL

H
ead ’em up! Move ’em out!

—E
RIC
F
LEMING
as trail boss Gil Favor on TV’s
Rawhide
1968

O
ne thing I’ll say fer the West is that in this country there is more cows and less butter, more rivers and less water, and
you can look farther and see less than in any other place in the world.

—A
NONYMOUS
Arizona rancher c. 1900

T
o become a good cowboy in certain areas, there’s ten rules that you’ve got to comply with before you get your silver spurs:

1. Handle a lariat correctly.

2. Rope an unbroken horse within the corral and break it to lead.

3. Saddle a horse correctly. Also, properly set and cinch a pack saddle. And after that, you have to know how to guide a horse
with one hand and also to guide him with your knees.

4. Properly pack an animal, including throwing the diamond hitch. This means cinching, in the shape of a diamond, the ends of
the rope that holds the pack saddle.

5. How to approach a horse or mule to hobble it: It isn’t easy. You walk up to a horse with your head down and your hobbles in
your hand. You don’t look him in the eye. You just walk up and crouch and go down and put the hobbles on him and step back.

6. Memorize the local brands of the area and their position on the animal.

7. Know and be able to perform the proper procedure to rope and stretch out an animal for branding and marking.

8. How to use a “branding ring”—the proper temperature and method: The hotter the ring, the faster you can make the brand; it
should be a good cherry red, and that’s about as hot as you can get it in a brush fire.

9. Proper identification of cow and calf to insure proper ownership before branding. You let the mother cow search out the calf
in the herd, and the calf will follow at her side.

10. To ride a cutting horse without “pulling leather” after the rider has indicatet to the horse which animal is to be cut from
the herd.

—R
OWLAND
R
IDER
Arizona Strip 1909

• Can you ride a pitching bronc?
  
• Can you rope a horse out of the remuda without throwing the loop around your own head?
  
• Are you good-natured?
  
• In case of a stampede at night, would you drift along in front or circle the cattle to a mill?
  
• Can you sing?
  

—Trail boss A
B
B
LOCKER
’s questions put to a prospective rider San Antonio, Texas c. 1880

[
T
o move a herd] the leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

—T
EDDY
R
OOSEVELT
1898

T
he only comparison I can make between moving a bunch of cows across the range and moving a bill through Congress is that if
you’re behind a bunch of cows you can give them direction, but behind a piece of legislation, it’s a free-for-all.

So I’m leaving politics. I’m getting the hell out of Washington and going back to my ranch in Oregon, where there’s some stability
and judgment left in the world.

—C
ONGRESSMAN
R
OBERT
S
MITH
Washington, D.C. 1994

I
n the summer of 1869, I sold a bunch of grown steers in Palo Pinto County, Texas, to Dr. D.B. Warren of Missouri, and we trailed
them to Baxter Springs, Kansas. We swam Red River at the old Preston ferry. We camped near the river the night before and
tried to cross early in the morning. The river was very full of muddy water, and the cattle refused to take to the water.
After all hands had about exhausted themselves, Dr. Warren, who was his own [trail] boss, said to me, “William, what will
we do about it?” I answered him that we had better back out and graze the cattle until the sun got up so they could see the
other bank, and they would want water and go across. “You should know that you can’t swim cattle across as big a stream as
this going east in the morning or going west late of an evening with the sun in their faces.” About one
P.M
. we put them back on the trail and by the time the drags got near the river, the leaders were climbing the east bank. The
doctor looked at me and said, “Well, I’ll be damned. Every man to his profession.”

—W. E. C
URETON
Meridian, Texas 1891

[
O
n the Chisholm Trail] it kept raining and storming. Good horses were ruined for life. All the horses were ridden down. There
was no such thing as lying down in a dry bed for a few hours of unbroken sleep. The cow chips, our principal fuel, were all
wet and half the time we could not get enough hot food and coffee. In such times a cowboy swore that he’d never go up the
trail again.…

So, if when he got to town, after long months out in the brush, on the lone prairie, or on the long, long trail, the cowboy
“cut loose” and had “a little fun,” he can hardly be blamed.

—J
OHN
Y
OUNG
Alpine, Texas 1929

I
never forgot that no matter how wet I was, no matter how sick I got, or how long I went between baths and shaves, no matter
how much my horse said I stunk, I always remembered that, thank God, I still had my good looks.

—C
ALE
W
ILKINS
Winslow, Arizona 1975

K
eep your end up or turn in your string of horses. On the roundup, no soldiering goes; sick or well, it’s hit yourself in the
flank with your hat and keep up with the bunch or be set afoot to pack your saddle; there’s no room in the chuck wagon for
a quitter’s blankets, and no time to close herd sick ones. So for heaven’s sake don’t start out unless you have the guts to
stand it.