The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-27

horses 10 known as the "remothe," and IS in charge of the two horse rang lers'-a day rangler" and a might hawk" With this outfit there are eleven meen and seeventy-one horses Rounding up cattle Is a pretty expen- sive business, and a man can hardly af- ford to run his cattle on the range un- less he has a great many.
 In striking camp, the first thing to be done Is to throw off the bedding and other loose articles, so that the cook can get at the bags of provisions in the bottom of the wagon. Then, while that dignitary is making the bread and pre- pairing the meat and vegetables, the two horse ranglers" are sent off to rustic for frewood. This Is rather scarce article in this part of the country, and sometimes we are hard put to get enough to cook meal. here are no trees except a few scattered cottonwoods along the water courses, and a kind of scrub cedar which grows in rough, hilly country. One day we met several teams going into Las Animas with wood that had been gath cred in the cedar brakes forty-five miles away. Think of making a round trip of ninety miles for one load of wood!
 Another article that is sometimes iAeNAu tO AtnO IS ana we have several times had to fill our bar rels from mud puddles. On this trip we have passed in sight of several water signs" These are large piles of stone erected by the old-time cow boys, usually on top of some hill, to indicate the presence of water some where in the vicinity.
 The cowboys certainly believe in the, old adage "early to bed, early to rise,"' etc. Soon after supper they unroIl their beds and prepare to retire-that is, those who do not have to stand first guard over the herd The night is di- vided into three watches, and the boys take turns at standing guard. It Is right here that the hard part of the coWboys life comes in. It is all very nice to gallop over the plains on a fine sun-shiny day and feel the sense of freedom that comes to a man nowhere as on the boundless prairie, but to be dragged out of a warm bed in the mid dle of the night and sent out into the darkness and the cold for two hours that looks like running a good thing into the ground. And yet this Is an almost daily occurrence In the life of every cowboy. The observations of the writer have led him to the conclusion that there is just ten times as much real. hard, disagreeable work and one tenth as much romance connected with l the life of a cowboy as most Eastern CTS imagine, Still, there is a good deal of variety in the work and a certain | element of danger and excitement, which gives to the life a strange fas- l clnation. Ask any cowboy puneher what he thinks of his work. and he will assure you that it Is, on the whole, a kind of dogs life, and yet in the next sentence he will tell you that he | likes 1t, and that he would not give 1t up for anything.
 A cowboy has to be a jack of all trades. He must know how to shoe his own horse, butcher his own meat and wash his own clothes; in short. to do anything that happens to come along. There Is a washboard with this outfit, but no tub. so the boys boil their clothes in the dinner pot and wash them out in the dishpan. Some of the boys have a convenient habit of throw | ing a suit of under-clothing away when it becomes too much soiled for wear.
 The writer has seen some quick butchering out on the range. One afternoon several of the boys ''rustled'' a calf. and within 20 minutes they had him killed. skinned and hung up, and part of him in the skillet cooking for supper.
 The ideal cowboy is a harum-scarum,
 daredevil sort of fellow. who doesn't care continental for his life. and who will plunge lIis horse into a swollen stream or ride like the wind over the
 rough ground when he cannot sec his
 hand before him. or head of a stam- Lpeda--in short. take any and all riska