Horse of a Different Color: Reminiscences of a Kansas Drover

by Ralph Moody

  Bob helped with the loading, but didn’t go along when George and I took the tally sheets to the bank. Bones made no comment on the weight, but told me to get the cattle auctioned early Monday morning, and to wire him immediately the amount he could draft against the commission agent.

  Cattle usually lost 7 to 10 per cent in weight during shipment from western Kansas. But Bob’s steers had dried out so thoroughly before George weighed them that the shipping shrinkage was slight, and on Monday morning beef cattle at the Kansas City auctions sold for the highest prices since the war. The steers I brought in did well enough that Bones lost barely fifteen hundred dollars on them after paying freight, selling commission, and my fee. I sent him a telegram as soon as the last carload had been sold, but there was no need of my hurrying back to Cedar Bluffs, so I took a room at the Stockmen’s Hotel. It was headquarters for the biggest cattlemen in the West when they came to Kansas City, and there was never an afternoon or evening when they weren’t sitting around the lobby discussing livestock and the market prospects.

  For the next three days I read every word of livestock news in the papers, listened to every discussion in the hotel lobby, and talked to every agent, drover, feeder, or stockman with whom I could scrape up an acquaintance. When I boarded the train home I was more enthused about the livestock feeding business than I’d ever been about anything in my life.

  4

  Jointly but Not as Partners

  IT WAS nearly noon when the train got to Cedar Bluffs. As I swung down to the platform, two well-dressed strangers climbed aboard, and Dad Haynes told me they were examiners who had been at the bank for the past two days. I went directly there, and from the way Bones was bubbling over with good cheer I knew he’d passed the examination better than he’d expected.

  After telling me I’d done a good job in handling the shipment for him, he asked, “Why don’t you and Bob go into partnership? He knows how to put fat onto cattle better than any man in Beaver Valley, and with you handling the business end of the partnership you’d make an unbeatable team. The shape I’ve got the bank’s affairs into now, I could guarantee you all the financing you’d have any use for, and you boys would clean up a fortune in the next few years.”

  I’d have had to be awfully stupid not to see through what Bones had in mind. With the tremendous wastage around Bob’s place and the failure of his watering trick, I knew he must be several thousand dollars in debt to the bank. The only hope Bones had of making any recovery was to keep him in the feeding business, but with a partner to offset his lack of business ability. I’d already made up my mind to go into the feeding business, and could have found no better setup for it than Bob’s place, but I’d seen too much of his trickery and wastefulness to go into partnership with him. My plan was to rebuild the corrals on the place I was leasing, go into the feeding business there on a small scale, and increase it as I made money from my shipping operations. To avoid telling Bones that I wouldn’t go into partnership with Bob under any circumstances, I simply said I’d have to think it over.

  That afternoon I started work on the corrals. The first thing Friday morning I took a urine specimen to Dr. DeMay, the McCook doctor who had been treating me for diabetes since I’d come to Kansas. The sugar content was up slightly from the previous week, so he told me to make green vegetables half of my diet until my next visit. I bought fifty pounds of cabbage—the only green vegetable in the stores—and a box of candy for Marguerite and the girls, then dropped in at the Wilson place on my way home. The two milch cows were feeding at one of the haystacks, and a dozen or more shoats were rooting in the corn piles. The hired men appeared to be listlessly repairing one of the pen gates, while Bob sat on the fence directing them.

  I stopped to talk to Marguerite a few minutes, and to give Betty Mae a piggy back ride, then went out to the feed lot. I expected Bob to question me about the steers I’d taken to Kansas City—the shipping shrink, what they’d brought at auction, etc.—but he didn’t. Instead, he started telling me, in almost the exact words Bones had used, that we ought to go into partnership. He said that with him doing the feeding and me handling the business matters we’d be an unbeatable team, and that we’d both clean up fortunes in less than two years.

  “That sounds awfully good,” I told him, “but you’ll have to count me out. It’s better for you to run your own business and me to run mine. Besides, I’m going to have all the work I can handle for the next year. Along with the trading and shipping I’ve been thinking of starting my own beef herd in the spring, using some of George Miner’s heifers as foundation stock, and I intend to double my wheat-hauling business next fall.”

  Although Bob still tried to hang on, I wouldn’t talk to him any more about our going into partnership, and got away as soon as I could. For the next couple of days I worked from daylight till dark at rebuilding the corrals. The gluten bread I baked was the worst I’d ever made, I got so tired of boiled cabbage and canned salmon that I hated to sit down at the table, and the evenings seemed interminable.

  About an hour after sunset on Sunday, Bob came to my place alone, and was no sooner in the house than he began telling me how wealthy we’d become if I’d go into partnership with him. I let him talk for fifteen or twenty minutes, then tried to head him off by telling him I’d always had a dread of debts, and didn’t want to get into a business requiring such huge loans as large-scale livestock feeding.

  “There won’t be no need for you to get into debt more’n ankle deep if you team up with me,” he said. “There’s a’ready thirty-five thousand bucks’ worth of corn and hay piled up on my place, and a hundred and fifty shoats in the lot. All we’d have to sign new notes for would be three hundred feeder steers, and that wouldn’t run more than about twenty thousand. By the middle of April we’d have them steers weighing leastways a thousand pounds apiece, and the shoats up to two hundred and fifty. Allowing that the market don’t go up another copper that stock will fetch anyways sixty-five thousand bucks. Why daggone it, boy, you team up with me and the both of us’ll lay away fifty thousand before another year rolls around.”

  “I’d sure like to make fifty thousand,” I told him, “but I’m not going into partnership with anyone. It’s better for you to have your own business and for me to have mine.”

  “I ain’t trying to horn in on your shipping and hauling businesses, Bud,” he told me earnestly. “What you make out of them would be all yours, along with half the profits on the feeding, and you’d have as much time as now. I and a couple of men would take care of all the work around the feed lot, and all you’d have to do is look after the banking and such like. You’d double your shipping business inside of a month if you had your headquarters right close to town and the bank and the railroad. Why, man alive, you’re plumb loco to be batching way up here on top of the divide. There’s plenty of spare room down to my place, and it wouldn’t be no trouble at all for Marguerite to cook up that special grub you’re supposed to eat.”

  Bob’s offer of Marguerite’s cooking and a home with children in it was a great temptation, but I’d have had to be insane to risk partnership with him. In an effort to save his feelings, I said, “I wouldn’t be the right partner for you, Bob. What you need is a man who knows the business end of livestock feeding as well as you know how to put fat on the hogs and cattle.”

  “What I need is the right partner so’s that Bones will lend us money to buy feeder steers,” he said dejectedly. “He tells me straight out that if we team up he’ll leave us have all the money we need to go into the feeding business in a big way, but elseways he won’t lend me the price of a haircut. By farming that sixty-seven acres I couldn’t make enough to pay interest on the mortgage, leave alone making a living for Marguerite and the kids. Look, Bud . . . ”

  With all Bob’s faults I liked him, and was under obligation for the time he’d spent teaching me what little I knew about livestock trading and weight estimating. Besides, I’d become as fond of Marguerite and the little girls a
s if they were my own sisters. I didn’t let Bob go any further, but told him, “I won’t go into partnership with you, Bob, but I’ll talk to Bones in the morning, and will do anything I can short of partnership to help you stay in the feeding business.”

  Monday morning I was waiting when Bones came to open the bank. While the key was still in the lock he began telling me that if I’d go into partnership with Bob, do the buying and selling, and keep my fingers on the purse strings and wastage, we’d make twenty-five thousand dollars apiece within a year. I thanked him for his confidence, but said that a partnership wouldn’t work, because neither I nor anyone else could control Bob or make him any different than he was. “You’re wrong,” he told me. “You could control him easy enough if he knew that he couldn’t make a deal or borrow a dime without your say-so, and I’ll make that clear to him right from the beginning.”

  “How deep is he in the hole?” I asked.

  “Without knowing how much feed there is out there, I couldn’t tell you,” he said, “but there’s a balance of just under forty thousand on the books. Like you, Bob didn’t have a dime when he came here, but he had a family to support. I can’t say how much of his balance is for interest and living expenses. But he bought a lot of corn back in September when the price was fifty cents a bushel higher than it is now, and he’s probably let a thousand dollars’ worth go to waste. I’d be willing to say that ten thousand of his account is water already over the dam, just between Bob and me, and won’t have anything to do with the partnership. I’ll make up a new note for thirty thousand, then call Bob in, and when you’ve both signed it you’ll be fifty-fifty partners, right down the line.”

  “I’ll risk everything I own in any business I think is a good one,” I told him, “but I won’t risk a dollar for a man who, because of his own fault, has nothing but debts.”

  “Don’t know as I blame you,” Bones said, “but it’s a pity for you two not to get together some way. Bob’s too irresponsible to handle a business alone, and you don’t know stock feeding well enough. But teamed together you couldn’t help making a fortune, and to have a prosperous feeding outfit here would be the best thing that could happen to the corn and livestock farmers in this township. As you say, Bob don’t have anything to put up as security, so I won’t ask you to put up anything either. You team up with him and I’ll lend the partnership enough to feed out three hundred steers and half that many hogs, and all the security I’ll ask is a mortgage on the feed and livestock. Is that fair enough?”

  “Perfectly fair,” I said, “but I still won’t risk going into partnership with him. Even though you took a mortgage on only the feed and livestock, I’d have the whole debt to pay off if we happened to run into a loss.”

  “Why do you say you’d have the debt to pay?” he asked sharply. “If you fellows happened to run into a little loss—but I don’t see how in blazes you could—it would be the debt of the partnership and could be made up out of the profits on the next bunch of livestock you fed.”

  “Isn’t any partner legally responsible for all the debts of a partnership?” I asked.

  “Well, legally, I suppose,” he said, “but . . . ”

  “Then there’ll be no partnership,” I broke in. “I’ve already told Bob that, but said I’d do anything short of it to help him stay in business. Couldn’t he and I buy, feed, and sell livestock together without being in partnership?”

  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, “suppose that each of us put up half the money—either our own or borrowed—to buy livestock, hay, corn, and pay all the other expenses, then fattened the stock in a single lot and divided the proceeds evenly when it was . . . ”

  “Wouldn’t work!” Bones snapped. “If all the stock was in one lot and all the feed in one place, how could the lender tell what feed and animals were mortgaged on each loan?”

  “That’s what I was coming to,” I said, “and I think it would keep the arrangement from being a partnership. The feed on hand at any time could be divided by measuring, so there would never be any difficulty in separating the halves. Each man could buy his own half of the feeder stock and hoof brand it before putting it into the feed lot, then separate it by brands at any time. There’s just one trouble with that: if one man bought poorer feeder stock than the other and paid half the feed bill, he’d come out with the short end of the stick. To get around that it would seem to me that all the feeders could be bought jointly, put into the lot unbranded, and divided one and one—the way kids choose up sides for a game of one-old-cat—whenever there was any reason for separating the halves.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere!” Bones said approvingly. “If the chattels can be separated at any time, so that each man can stand alone with his own property and obligations, I don’t see how there’d be a partnership even though the stock was fed in one lot with feed from the same stacks and piles. I’m no lawyer, but I’ll tell you this: if you and Bob will team up that way I’ll make you separate loans—that is if he’ll agree to a few things I’d require—and guarantee never to hold you liable for a dime of his debts.”

  “Would you put that in writing so that no one could ever question it?” I asked.

  “I’d write it on the face of your note if you’d like it that way,” he told me. “It would then be a part of the loan agreement, and I don’t believe there’s a court in the world that wouldn’t honor it.”

  “What interest rate would you charge us?” I asked.

  “Why the standard rate—ten per cent a year,” he said. “But I’ll make you twelve-month feed loans and four-month livestock loans, with the option of repaying any part and cutting off the interest at earlier dates.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, “but there are a couple of other things I’d like to get settled before you call Bob. I won’t go in any deeper than three hundred steers and half that many hogs. If you put up the entire investment you’d be entitled to considerable control of the business. But I want a free hand in operating my half, and the right to terminate the agreement and separate my stock from Bob’s at any time I consider his acts to be negligent, wasteful, or harmful to the business. In exchange, I’ll invest two thousand dollars of my own money and put up my horses and wagons as additional security. If we can do business on that basis, and if Bob can do no buying, selling, or hiring without my approval, I’ll agree to feed stock with him, and to buy half the hay, corn, and hogs on his place at a value to be set by George Miner.”

  I think my offer to mortgage my horses and wagons was a big surprise to Bones. He stuck out his hand to shake, and said, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a deal, son.”

  Bob must have been expecting Bones’s call, for he got to the bank within ten minutes. Twenty minutes later he’d consented to all my conditions and we’d reached an agreement to operate jointly but not as partners in the livestock-feeding business. We also agreed that I would move my trading and shipping operations to his place and have use of the bunkhouse, sorting pens, and scales in exchange for paying half the land mortgage interest and real estate taxes. In addition to half the cost of feeder steers and operating expenses, Bones agreed to lend Bob six hundred dollars for living expenses during the four-month feeding period, but demanded that all his notes become due immediately if our joint venture was terminated.

  As soon as all the agreements had been reached I drove over to ask George Miner if he’d set a value on the hay, corn, and hogs. He said he’d be willing to do it, but that if he were in my boots he’d be mighty careful about getting onto thin ice with as fancy a skater as Bob.

  After I’d explained all the terms of our agreement, and that I could terminate it at any time, he said, “Well that ought to protect you some, but there’s an awful lot of traps layin’ around for greenhorns in the feedin’ game. Besides, Bob’s a’ready earned a bad reputation for cheatin’, and a man doin’ business alongside of him could awful easy get tarred with the same stick. I kind of got the notion you aimed to s
tart a little Hereford herd. Fact is, I picked out a few nice heifers, figurin’ you might want ’em, come spring. There’d be no need to take ’em out of the herd here even then. There’s plenty of pasture and hay land on the place, and Irene and I are gettin’ on in years. What with no boy of our own, I kind of had a notion . . . ”

  George broke off suddenly, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, what’s the odds, anyways? I reckon you’ve a’ready got your mind made up, or like as not given your word, but I’d be a mite leery about gettin’ into the feedin’ business in times like these. Hogs are back down to a sensible price, but cattle—specially feeder and fat steers—are awful high, and I’ll be jiggered if I can see what’s goin’ to keep the price up there.”

  “While I was in Kansas City I listened to all the discussions between the big cattlemen in the Stockmen’s Hotel lobby,” I told him, “and I talked to more than a dozen agents, feeders, and drovers. There wasn’t one of them that didn’t think the price of prime steers would be up to at least twenty-five dollars by spring, and some believe it will rise to thirty-five or forty. All the newspapers are saying that America will have to feed starving Europe for ten more years, so there’ll be plenty of demand, and the agents tell me that all the export beef is prime grade, so the demand will be for fat steers, don’t you think?”

  George listened without interruption till I’d finished, then said, “There’s lots of smart men down to Kansas City, and they know more about what’s goin’ on in the world than I do, so I couldn’t say they’re wrong. But don’t forget that there’s two Americas—North and South. I was readin’ somewheres a few months back that there’s more cattle on the pampas down in Argentina than there used to be buffaloes on these prairies when my father was a boy. Of course, they’re not corn-fat steers, but I never heard of starvin’ folks turning their noses up at good grass-fed beef . . . specially if they happen to be a mite shy on cash the way I understand most of the folks in Europe are since the war. It seems to me like they might go to buyin’ their beef in South America if we keep the price of ours too high for ’em.”