第26章 CAMP SUPPLY(2)

Their stock were scattered over several thousand acres, and when I asked for the boss, a middle-aged darky of herculean figure was pointed out as in charge.To my inquiry why he was holding the ford, his answer was that until to-day the river had been swimming, and now he was waiting for the banks to dry.Ridiculing his flimsy excuse, I kindly yet firmly asked him either to cross or vacate the ford by three o'clock that afternoon.Receiving no definite reply, I returned to our herd, which was some five miles in the rear.Beyond the river's steep, slippery banks and cold water, there was nothing to check a herd.

After the noonday halt, the wrangler and myself took our remuda and went on ahead to the river.Crossing and recrossing our saddle stock a number of times, we trampled the banks down to a firm footing.While we were doing this work, the negro foreman and a number of his men rode up and sullenly watched us.Leaving our horses on the north bank, Levering and I returned, and ignoring the presence of the darky spectators, started back to meet the herd, which was just then looming up in sight.But before we had ridden any distance, the dusky foreman overtook us and politely said, "Look-ee here, Cap'n; ain't you-all afraid of losin' some of your cattle among ours?" Never halting, I replied, "Not a particle; if we lose any, you eat them, and we'll do the same if our herd absorbs any of yours.But it strikes me that you had better have those lazy niggers throw your cattle to one side," I called back, as he halted his horse.We did not look backward until we reached the herd; then as we turned, one on each side to support the points, it was evident that a clear field would await us on reaching the river.Every horseman in the black outfit was pushing cattle with might and main, to give us a clean cloth at the crossing.

The herd forded the Washita without incident.I remained on the south bank while the cattle were crossing, and when they were about half over some half-dozen of the darkies rode up and stopped apart, conversing among themselves.When the drag cattle passed safely out on the farther bank, I turned to the dusky group, only to find their foreman absent.Making a few inquiries as to the ownership of their herd, its destination, and other matters of interest, I asked the group to express my thanks to their foreman for moving his cattle aside.Our commissary crossed shortly afterward, and the Washita was in our rear.But that night, as some of my outfit returned from the river, where they had been fishing, they reported the negro outfit as having crossed and encamped several miles in our rear.

"All they needed was a good example," said Dorg Seay."Under a white foreman, I'll bet that's a good lot of darkies.They were just about the right shade--old shiny black.As good cowhands as ever I saw were nigs, but they need a white man to blow and brag on them.But it always ruins one to give him any authority."Without effort we traveled fifteen miles a day.In the absence of any wet weather to gall their backs, there was not a horse in our remuda unfit for the saddle.In fact, after reaching the Indian Territory, they took on flesh and played like lambs.With the exception of long hours and night-herding, the days passed in seeming indolence as we swept northward, crossing rivers without a halt which in previous years had defied the moving herds.On arriving at the Cimarron River, in reply to a letter written to my employer on leaving Texas behind us, an answer was found awaiting me at Red Fork.The latter was an Indian tradingpost, located on the mail route to Fort Reno, and only a few miles north of the Chisholm Crossing.The letter was characteristic of my employer.It contained but one imperative order,--that Ishould touch, either with or without the herd, at Camp Supply.

For some unexplained reason he would make that post his headquarters until after the Buford herds had passed that point.

The letter concluded with the injunction, in case we met any one, to conceal the ownership of the herd and its destination.

The mystery was thickening.But having previously declined to borrow trouble, I brushed this aside as unimportant, though Igave my outfit instructions to report the herd to every one as belonging to Omaha men, and on its way to Nebraska to be corn-fed.Fortunately I had ridden ahead of the herd after crossing the Cimarron, and had posted the outfit before they reached the trading-station.I did not allow one of my boys near the store, and the herd passed by as in contempt of such a wayside place.As the Dodge cut-off left the Chisholm Trail some ten miles above the Indian trading-post, the next morning we waved good-bye to the old cattle trace and turned on a northwest angle.Our route now lay up the Cimarron, which we crossed and recrossed at our pleasure, for the sake of grazing or to avoid several large alkali flats.There was evidence of herds in our advance, and had we not hurried past Red Fork, I might have learned something to our advantage.But disdaining all inquiry of the cut-off, fearful lest our identity be discovered, we deliberately walked into the first real danger of the trip.

At low water the Cimarron was a brackish stream.But numerous tributaries put in from either side, and by keeping above the river's ebb, an abundance of fresh water was daily secured from the river's affluents.The fifth day out from Red Rock was an excessively sultry one, and suffering would have resulted to the herd had we not been following a divide where we caught an occasional breeze.The river lay some ten miles to our right, while before us a tributary could be distinctly outlined by the cottonwoods which grew along it.Since early morning we had been paralleling the creek, having nooned within sight of its confluence with the mother stream, and consequently I had considered it unnecessary to ride ahead and look up the water.