The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1885-09-09
HAPPY MONTANA COWPUNCHERs.
The Easy ana Delightful Life OF Herd
ers here As q Texas COWBOY
Found it.

For the past few days have been
puching COWS with the northern Mon
tana cowboys: that is they call 1t punch
ing cows. but veteran Texas cowboy
would call it pienicking. They roundu
little bunch of COWS in the morning,
brand the calves by noon, and then lie
around on buffalo robes in their palatial
tents, and read novels or amuse them
selves as they see fiji. Gamble Why,
yesterday saw $500 change hands on a
scrub pony race. lfsome one had enter
ed brindle Texas COW I should have
backed here for my entire Doodle, and
won, too, by the holy poker, for neither
of the ponies could have headed Span
ish COW. It would delight the heart of
the average Texas cowboy to be hired to
Montana cowInan, and there shown
the horses from which ne was to select
bis mount great, talIowy horses, sleek
- livery hos, aad very few Of them
but what are gentle as dog. And !
may add that when Montana cowboy
gets back from round-,p, his horses are
still fat.
In the first place, he has plenty of
them, and these men do not allow their
hands to dash around just for the fun of
the thing. And the cattle here are so
different from what they are in Texas
that there is really very little hard rid
to do Boys who have worked on both
ranges say that while the average Texas
COW pony cannot compare with his Mon
tana brother as to looks, yet when it
comes to doing hard work, and heap of
it, he is far superior to the latter. He is
quicker and harder, and better adapted
to just such work In the past few days
I have seen over 1000 horses that have
been on the go for over month, and
there is not one of them but what is mud
fat Live? Why, these cowboys live
higher than anybody They have every
thing that money can buy, and cook
with paper hat on to prepare it. The
cook is SO nice and polite that you could
eat him, if you were right hungry ; but
in fact / do not believe he would object
if you would attempt to do so. He is
too well bred, too obliging, to object to
anything you wish to do. They have
fresh beef all the time One man kills
beef, keeps a quarter, and sells the rest
to the other outfits that are along This
is not strange for remember beef is
worth $50 Cowboys get about the same
wages here that they do in Texas, but
one dollar in Texas will buy as much as
three in Montana, and the boys only get
work three or four months in the year
Say, do you know that away up in this
high altitude we hardly have any night
at all at this time of the yea? ? The sun
Just seems to loiter along in the sides of
the mountains and forgets TO go down
until you get discouraged and go to bed
and leave him to do as he pleases about
it. Bnt you can safely bet that ne will
be attending to business at the old stand
bright and early next morning. 1t is not
good dark here until II o'clock, and at
half past two daylight begins to appear.
Up a little higher on the mountains it
even beats that record Two boys went
up on a high peak about o'clock the
other afternoon just to watch the sun
monkey about awhile. One stood on
the western edge to see him 60 down
and the other stood on the eastern side
to see him rise. After some time the
one on the west said;
"There he goes down, Jim guess it's
about supper time"
Eyes, durn him, here he comes, was
the reply, "and we might as well go to
breakfast"
It's all nice enough to poke fun at the
boys up here, but you can't buy herd
of average Montana cattle for S95 per
head. And then when they apply a
branding iron to a calf on this range it
is about the same thing as stamping a
twenty dollar gold piece.