The Coconino sun., 1924-04-04

some interesting things of early Ari-
zona days, in the st. Johns Observer,
under the caption, Gas My Memory
Recalls.")
It's corporate name was the Aztec
Land and Cattle company, but in the
parlance of northern Arizona it was
always the Hashknife outfit. Its
range was bounded on the north by
the Navajo Indian reservation, on the
west by Canyon Diablo and Mormon
Lake and Mormon Dairy, on the south
| by the crest of the Mogollon and
White mountains, and on the east by
Silver creek, the Little Colorado river
and a line on the north. The COM
pany owned by purchase from the
railroad company every alternate sec
| ton Of the entire range, so 1T SEEM
ed to be on about as solid footing as
any livestock venture ever made in
| Arizona.
It was big brand from down on
the Brazos and Pecos rivers of Tex
as, and the cattle were brought IN
here in great train loads and turned
onto the new range. They came with
their long Texas horns, long and slim
like race horses, with big necked bulls
| almost like buffaloes, and wearing the
hashknife brand, the major part of
them getting here in the summer and
fall Of 1885 and the spring of 1886.
/ The home ranch of the company was
| just across the river from Joseph City
/ and remember that in the spring of
| 'S6 when | was coming into the coun-
| try. there was a Hashknife bog rider
busy every few miles up the Little
| Colorado pulling poor cows out of the
quicksand.
Well, there were forty-five thous-
and cattle that wore that hashknlfe
brand in the company's best days,
while it took forty cowboys to brand
the calves, ride the bogs, guard
against cattle rustlers and round up
the steers and barren cows for mar
ket, while the horse wrangler had ov-
er 400 head of saddles horses to take
care of when the roundup was busy.
But it was the days when the settlers
| (nesters) were taking up the ranges
| of Texas, so that cattle were being
forced way down in prices for want
| of range. On top of that, 1891 was
a summer without rainy season,
and 1892 was almost as dry, while
1898 was still dry and the year of the
panic. Cattle were hardly worth the
| rounding up, and the company made
one sale of full grown cows of approx
| imateIy 5000 head for SIS a head. The
toll of the drouth was terrible and
dead cattle made the Little Colorado
fairly rotten with carcasses during the
winters of 1891 and '92 and '93, all
the way from Holbrook to the San
Francisco wash.
1t was a right interesting bunch of
punchers that used to work for the
Hashknife, and they were almost all
Texans of the most pronunced type,
| with a particular fondness for shoot
ing up the town when they got too
much to drink, and Winslow used to
catch it rough from those Hashknifers
while Holbrook had its share. jim
Simpson was the manager of the
company, and he represented the
county in the legislative council of
1889.
Did you ever see roundup in the
| days of the old cattle kings of the
| southwest? Each cowboy had a
mount of from six to ten horses, and
these were cared for by one or two of
the men who were known as wrang-
lers. There were two or three wagons
with the roundup, with cupboard in
! the back of the wagon, and the cook
usually drove the wagon from camp
| ground tc camp ground with the front
| Of the wagon filled with bed rolls.
Reaching camp, the cook took no time
| to unhitch the horses, and some one
/ else cut the wood for him. The cook
| was the first man up in the morning
| and the last one to bed at night. He
would bake bread and fry beef in six
! Dutch ovens running all at the same
time. Soda bread, beefsteak and cof-
| fee, with now and then some syrup
or potatoes, supplied the food. There
| were usually two round-ups year
| one in the summer for branding the
calves and one in the fall for gather
/ ing the steers. If the rains were late,
| the two were often combined in the
late summer or early fall. How those
| punchers did work during roundup
| timei As soon as it was daylight,
they were off to ride the range and
bring in all of the cattle, often as
many as a thousand head, to a des-
! ignated gathering ground. Then fol-
lowed the branding of calves, some
times way into the night, with the
| cutting back of the cattle that were
to be left, the caring for the day herd
of steers or cattle that were to be
taken to other ranges. Nothing in
the vests industrial life ever appeal
ed more to full red-blooded Ameri-
can boy that life on cattle ranch.
| In none of Arizona more than on the
/ old Hashknife range.
/ OF all the small arms of the Hash
krifers, very few stayed long in
northern Arizona They came quick,
| as did that big brand of cattle. 1t
was the biggest brand ever in Ari-
zona. BY the middle of the '90's
| practically all of the men and all of
the cattle had gone. Walter Durham,
who used to be the "Hashknife Kid"
settled down in Flagstaff and has ac-
] cumulated some property and is a
| substantial citizen. George Ulyard,
the old-time roundup cook and Char
| lie Moss are both in the Pioneer Home
| at Prescott. Jack Diamond is still in
the country some place, and Pete Penn