A Crossroads Resource

Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900

Question/Problem 4: What was the West like for miners, cattlemen, and homesteader?

Cattlemen Worksheet #2
All through the blistering, sunburned day, the bunch of cattle, guarded by the men..., crawl slowly to the north.... At night a gently sloping hillside is picked to bed the cattle on. The range boss, assisted by the riders... rounds up and stops the her d.... Nine riders are divided into three guards of three men each--the first to ride herd until eleven o'clock, the second going on until three o'clock and the third holding the herd until morning.

'It looks like it might be a bad night,' says the range boss, 'so you all better ketch up and saddle your night ponies and be ready to go on herd any minute.'

Supper of bacon, biscuit and canned sweet corn is over and every man's best horse, brought up and saddled, is left to wait any necessity which may arise. By eight o'clock each tired rider not on herd is asleep in his blankets. Two hours go by.... Suddenly a flash of lightning blazes on the northwest and soon a dull rumble of thunder follows....

All hands are roused out and, grumbling... ride to the herd. A stampede must be avoided for with so many grazing cattle in a herd it would be doubly disastrous. The riders... go circling about the herd... accompanying their efforts with whistle, song and shout. Meanwhile the rain begins... The lightning grows brighter... The thunder... has grown into a constant, neverending roar, and the frightened herd with heads upraised and glaring eyes push about, ready on the instant to stampede. This would me an serious business, this turning $100,000 worth of cattle loose in pitch darkness, to break their scampering legs and frightened necks over precipice and rock. So the boys crowd upon the herd, still circling it, riding harder and singing louder than ever.

At last morning breaks and the storm... dies away. The herd again is composed and the tired boys... come riding up to breakfast.

From Clifford P. Westermeier, ed., Trailing the Cowboy: His Life and Lore as Told by Frontier Journalists, pp. 67-69.

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