The Outlet

by Andy Adams

  CHAPTER I. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN

  "Well, gentlemen, if that is the best rate you can offer us, then we'lldrive the cattle. My boys have all been over the trail before, and yourfigures are no inducement to ship as far as Red River. We are fullyaware of the nature of the country, but we can deliver the herds attheir destination for less than you ask us for shipping them one thirdof the distance. No; we'll drive all the way."

  The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties addressedwere the general freight agents of three railroad lines operating inTexas. A conference had been agreed upon, and we had come in by trainfrom the ranch in Medina County to attend the meeting in San Antonio.The railroad representatives were shrewd, affable gentlemen, andpresented an array of facts hard to overcome. They were well aware ofthe obstacles to be encountered in the arid, western portion of thestate, and magnified every possibility into a stern reality. Unrollinga large state map upon the table, around which the principals weresitting, the agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail fromBuffalo Gap to Doan's Crossing on Red River. Producing what was declaredto be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed bystatistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran hadrecently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants. The representativeof the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when opportunity offered, enumeratedevery disaster which had happened to any herd to the westward of hisline in the past five years. The factor of the International was equallywell posted.

  "Now, Mr. Lovell," said he, dumping a bundle of papers on the table, "ifyou will kindly glance over these documents, I think I can convince youthat it is only a question of a few years until all trail cattle willship the greater portion of the way. Here is a tabulated statement up toand including the year '83. From twenty counties tributary to our lineand south of this city, you will notice that in '80 we practicallyhandled no cattle intended for the trail. Passing on to the nextseason's drive, you see we secured a little over ten per cent. of thecattle and nearly thirty per cent. of the horse stock. Last year, or for'83, drovers took advantage of our low rates for Red River points, andthe percentage ran up to twenty-four and a fraction, or practicallyspeaking, one fourth of the total drive. We are able to offer thesame low rates this year, and all arrangements are completed with ourconnecting lines to give live-stock trains carrying trail cattle apassenger schedule. Now, if you care to look over this correspondence,you will notice that we have inquiries which will tax our carryingcapacity to its utmost. The 'Laurel Leaf' and 'Running W' people alonehave asked for a rate on thirty thousand head."

  But the drover brushed the correspondence aside, and asked for thepossible feed bills. A blanket rate had been given on the entireshipment from that city, or any point south, to Wichita Falls, with onerest and feed. Making a memorandum of the items, Lovell arose from thetable and came over to where Jim Flood and I were searching for FortBuford on a large wall map. We were both laboring under the impressionthat it was in Montana, but after our employer pointed it out to us atthe mouth of the Yellowstone in Dakota, all three of us adjourned toan ante-room. Flood was the best posted trail foreman in Don Lovell'semploy, and taking seats at the table, we soon reduced the proposedshipping expense to a pro-rata sum per head. The result was not tobe considered, and on returning to the main office, our employer, asalready expressed, declined the proffered rate.

  Then the freight men doubled on him, asking if he had taken intoconsideration a saving in wages. In a two days' run they would lay downthe cattle farther on their way than we could possibly drive in sixweeks, even if the country was open, not to say anything about the wearand tear of horseflesh. But Don Lovell had not been a trail drover fornearly fifteen years without understanding his business as well asthe freight agents did theirs. After going over a large lot of otherimportant data, our employer arose to take his leave, when the agentof the local line expressed a hope that Mr. Lovell would reconsider hisdecision before spring opened, and send his drive a portion of the wayby rail.

  "Well, I'm glad I met you, gentlemen," said the cowman at parting, "butthis is purely a business proposition, and you and I look at it fromdifferent viewpoints. At the rate you offer, it will cost me one dollarand seventy-five cents to lay a steer down on Red River. Hold on; mineare all large beeves; and I must mount my men just the same as if theytrailed all the way. Saddle horses were worth nothing in the North lastyear, and I kept mine and bought enough others around Dodge to make upa thousand head, and sent them back over the trail to my ranch. Now, itwill take six carloads of horses for each herd, and I propose to chargethe freight on them against the cattle. I may have to winter my remudasin the North, or drive them home again, and if I put two dollars a headfreight in them, they won't bring a cent more on that account. With thecattle it's different; they are all under contract, but the horses mustbe charged as general expense, and if nothing is realized out of them,the herd must pay the fiddler. My largest delivery is a sub-contract forFort Buford, calling for five million pounds of beef on foot. It willtake three herds or ten thousand cattle to fill it. I was anxious togive those Buford beeves an early start, and that was the main reason inmy consenting to this conference. I have three other earlier deliveriesat Indian agencies, but they are not as far north by several hundredmiles, and it's immaterial whether we ship or not. But the Bufordcontract sets the day of delivery for September 15, and it's going totake close figuring to make a cent. The main contractors are all right,but I'm the one that's got to scratch his head and figure close andsee that there's no leakages. Your freight bill alone would be a niceprofit. It may cost us a little for water getting out of Texas, butwith the present outlet for cattle, it's bad policy to harass the herds.Water is about the best crop some of those settlers along the trail haveto sell, and they ought to treat us right."

  After the conference was over, we scattered about the city, on variouserrands, expecting to take the night train home. It was then the middleof February, and five of the six herds were already purchased. In spiteof the large numbers of cattle which the trail had absorbed in previousyears, there was still an abundance of all ages, anxious for a market.The demand in the North had constantly been for young cattle, leavingthe matured steers at home. Had Mr. Lovell's contracts that year calledfor forty thousand five and six year old beeves, instead of twenty,there would have been the same inexhaustible supply from which to pickand choose. But with only one herd yet to secure, and ample offerings onevery hand, there was no necessity for a hurry. Many of the herds driventhe year before found no sale, and were compelled to winter in the Northat the drover's risk. In the early spring of '84, there was a decidedlull over the enthusiasm of the two previous years, during the formerof which the trail afforded an outlet for nearly seven hundred thousandTexas cattle.

  In regard to horses we were well outfitted. During the summer of '83,Don Lovell had driven four herds, two on Indian contract and two ofyounger cattle on speculation. Of the latter, one was sold in Dodge fordelivery on the Purgatory River in southern Colorado, while the otherwent to Ogalalla, and was disposed of and received at that point. Inboth cases there was no chance to sell the saddle horses, and theyreturned to Dodge and were sent to pasture down the river in thesettlements. My brother, Bob Quirk, had driven one of the other herds toan agency in the Indian Territory. After making the delivery, early inAugust, on his employer's orders, he had brought his remuda and outfitinto Dodge, the horses being also sent to pasture and the men home toTexas. I had made the trip that year to the Pine Ridge Agency in Dakotawith thirty-five hundred beeves, under Flood as foreman. Don Lovell waspresent at the delivery, and as there was no hope of effecting a sale ofthe saddle stock among the Indians, after delivering the outfit at thenearest railroad, I was given two men and the cook, and started backover the trail for Dodge with the remuda. The wagon was a drawback, buton reaching Ogalalla, an emigrant outfit offered me a fair price for themules and commissary, and I sold them. Lashing our rations and blanketson two pack-horses, we turned our backs on the Platte a
nd crossed theArkansaw at Dodge on the seventh day.

  But instead of the remainder of the trip home by rail, as we fondlyexpected, the programme had changed. Lovell and Flood had arrived inDodge some ten days before, and looking over the situation, had come tothe conclusion it was useless even to offer our remudas. As remnantsof that year's drive, there had concentrated in and around that marketsomething like ten thousand saddle horses. Many of these were fromcentral and north Texas, larger and better stock than ours, even thoughcare had been used in selecting the latter. So on their arrival, insteadof making any effort to dispose of our own, the drover and his foremanhad sized up the congested condition of the market, and turned buyers.They had bought two whole remudas, and picked over five or six othersuntil their purchases amounted to over five hundred head. Consequentlyon our reaching Dodge with the Pine Ridge horses, I was informed thatthey were going to send all the saddle stock back over the trail to theranch and that I was to have charge of the herd. Had the trip been inthe spring and the other way, I certainly would have felt elated over mypromotion. Our beef herd that year had been put up in Dimmit County,and from there to the Pine Ridge Agency and back to the ranch wouldcertainly be a summer's work to gratify an ordinary ambition.

  In the mean time and before our arrival, Flood had brought up all thestock and wagons from the settlement, and established a camp on MulberryCreek, south of Dodge on the trail. He had picked up two Texans whowere anxious to see their homes once more, and the next day at noon westarted. The herd numbered a thousand and sixty head, twenty of whichwere work-mules. The commissary which was to accompany us was ladenprincipally with harness; and waving Flood farewell, we turned homeward,leaving behind unsold of that year's drive only two wagons. Lovell hadinstructed us never to ride the same horse twice, and wherever goodgrass and water were encountered, to kill as much time as possible. Myemployer was enthusiastic over the idea, and well he might be, fora finer lot of saddle horses were not in the possession of any traildrover, while those purchased in Dodge could have been resold in SanAntonio at a nice profit. Many of the horses had run idle several monthsand were in fine condition. With the allowance of four men and a cook, adraft-book for personal expenses, and over a thousand horses from whichto choose a mount, I felt like an embryo foreman, even if it was a backtrack and the drag end of the season. Turning everything scot freeat night, we reached the ranch in old Medina in six weeks, actuallytraveling about forty days.

  But now, with the opening of the trail season almost at hand, the trialsof past years were forgotten in the enthusiasm of the present. I had adistinct recollection of numerous resolves made on rainy nights, whileholding a drifting herd, that this was positively my last trip over thetrail. Now, however, after a winter of idleness, my worst fear was thatI might be left at home with the ranch work, and thus miss the season'souting entirely. There were new charms in the Buford contract whichthrilled me,--its numerical requirements, the sight of the Yellowstoneagain, and more, to be present at the largest delivery of the year tothe government. Rather than have missed the trip, I would have gladlycooked or wrangled the horses for one of the outfits.

  On separating, Lovell urged his foreman and myself to be at the depot ingood time to catch our train. That our employer's contracts for the yearwould require financial assistance, both of us were fully aware. Thecredit of Don Lovell was gilt edge, not that he was a wealthy cowman,but the banks and moneyed men of the city recognized his businessability. Nearly every year since he began driving cattle, assistance hadbeen extended him, but the promptness with which he had always met hisobligations made his patronage desirable.

  Flood and I had a number of errands to look after for the boys on theranch and ourselves, and, like countrymen, reached the depot fullyan hour before the train was due. Not possessed of enough gumption toinquire if the westbound was on time, we loitered around until someother passengers informed us that it was late. Just as we were on thepoint of starting back to town, Lovell drove up in a hack, and the threeof us paced the platform until the arrival of the belated train.

  "Well, boys, everything looks serene," said our employer, when we hadwalked to the farther end of the depot. "I can get all the money I need,even if we shipped part way, which I don't intend to do. The banks admitthat cattle are a slow sale and a shade lower this spring, and are notas free with their money as a year or two ago. My bankers detained meover an hour until they could send for a customer who claimed to have avery fine lot of beeves for sale in Lasalle County. That he is anxiousto sell there is no doubt, for he offered them to me on my own time, andagrees to meet any one's prices. I half promised to come back next weekand go down with him to Lasalle and look his cattle over. If they showup right, there will be no trouble in buying them, which will completeour purchases. It is my intention, Jim, to give you the herd to fillour earliest delivery. Our next two occur so near together that you willhave to represent me at one of them. The Buford cattle, being the lastby a few weeks, we will both go up there and see it over with. There areabout half a dozen trail foremen anxious for the two other herds, andwhile they are good men, I don't know of any good reason for not pushingmy own boys forward. I have already decided to give Dave Sponsilier andQuince Forrest two of the Buford herds, and I reckon, Tom, the last onewill fall to you."

  The darkness in which we were standing shielded my egotism from publicview. But I am conscious that I threw out my brisket several inchesand stood straight on my bow-legs as I thanked old man Don for theforemanship of his sixth herd. Flood was amused, and told me afterwardthat my language was extravagant. There is an old superstition that ifa man ever drinks out of the Rio Grande, it matters not where he roamsafterward, he is certain to come back to her banks again. I had wateredmy horse in the Yellowstone in '82, and ever afterward felt an itchingto see her again. And here the opportunity opened before me, not as acommon cow-hand, but as a trail boss and one of three in filling a fivemillion pound government beef contract! But it was dark and I was afoot,and if I was a trifle "chesty," there had suddenly come new colorings tomy narrow world.

  On the arrival of the train, several other westward-bound cowmen boardedit. We all took seats in the smoker, it being but a two hours' run toour destination. Flood and I were sitting well forward in the car, theformer almost as elated over my good fortune as myself. "Well, won't oldQuince be all puffed up," said Jim to me, "when the old man tells himhe's to have a herd. Now, I've never said a word in favor of eitherone of you. Of course, when Mr. Lovell asked me if I knew certain trailforemen who were liable to be idle this year, I intimated that he hadplenty of material in his employ to make a few of his own. The old manmay be a trifle slow on reaching a decision, but once he makes up hismind, he's there till the cows come home. Now, all you and Quince needto do is to make good, for you couldn't ask for a better man behind you.In making up your outfit, you want to know every man you hire, and givea preference to gray hairs, for they're not so liable to admire theirshadow in sunny or get homesick in falling weather. Tom, where you madea ten-strike with the old man was in accepting that horse herd at Dodgelast fall. Had you made a whine or whimper then, the chances are youwouldn't be bossing a herd this year. Lovell is a cowman who likes tosee a fellow take his medicine with a smile."