Then he asked, “Is Timber at the ranch?”
“Yes he is, or he was yesterday.”
“Wal, I was just wonderin’ what in heck you was doin’ ridin’ Timber’s pet horse. Never saw anybody else on that Snorter horse.”
And so it went.
All the hands at the wagon (there were 31 men who ate dinner that day) stared at the big bay, and looked around wanting to know who was ridin’ Timber’s cuttin’ horse. I began to feel conspicuous.
It had never occurred to me that my boss, who had been in this region and in nearby old Mexico a lifetime, had such a well-known horse. But good cutting horses had never been in abundance anywhere and I was to learn that Snorter was known all over the region. He was indeed one of the best any cowhand has ever had the pleasure of riding inside a herd.
Each day for the following seven or eight days, we’d leave camp by daylight, make a big circle of the relatively open country, and usually by ten o’clock the herd would be on the roundup ground.
While half the crew loped into the wagon’ for dinner, the rest would settle the several hundred head down. When everybody had eaten, the company wagon boss, with sometimes another man, would cut out the animals being gathered for shipment to another company-owned ranch. In this case, yearling and older steers were being gathered. They were held in a day herd both day and night. When the company man was finished, the reps rode in to look for their brands. In my own case, I was looking for Spurbranded steers. I cut them out and a man would haze them into the company day herd.
Each day, you may be sure, when my time came to ride into the big herd to look for our cattle, Snorter was carrying me. I enjoyed the looks of envy, or admiration, when that good horse really turned on to ease a big, half-wild steer from the herd. But I worried one night when I overheard a low conversation between two shady “baling wire” nesters who were discussing how and if they could get away with stealing the horse.
In reality, I knew it would be awfully hard for anybody to steal a horse from that remuda, watched over so closely by ol’ Chief, the tough old head wrangler. But, if anything did happen to Snorter, I’d just not even go back to the home ranch. It would be too dangerous. So the last two nights I was with the wagon, I unrolled my bed some little distance from camp; grazing on a stake rope nearby was Snorter.
It was a great experience working on roundup with one of the really great ranches of the West, and on a virtually open range of tremendous dimensions.
When we reached the Diamond A’s High Lonesome camp, I cut my steers and saddle horses and waved goodbye.
Forty odd years later, when I was back there in the border country on the same range, I found few of those I had known. No one could remember me, until finally an old, old man squinted, thought awhile, then remembered.
“By gosh now, I shore can’t recollect you. But I kin recollect some wild kid who wuz with the wagon a-ridin’ Ed Timberlake’s bay cuttin’ horse, ol’ Snorter.”
Good horses on a cow outfit are always longer remembered than the men who ride them.
Like this story? Read “An Old Ranch Custom,” written about the old traditions ranches carried on for their hired hands.
Great story