Ranch station

“ When I got to the station for our old ranch, below Cody, forty miles from where our ranch was when we lived there, there wasn't very many people around the station that I knew. A good many new men was there, with wide hats, and leggings on their legs, and breeches that buttons on the side—folks that had come out West to be right Western. Most of 'em come out to raise bananas on the Yellow Bull and be gentlemen farmers, I reckon. ”

“ The strands of wire got mixed and crossed and grew perceptibly shorter, so that it required superhuman strength and something of a disposition to get the end of the stick through the loop of wire, which held it in place again.
This gate marked the Southern boundary of the ranch, ten miles from the railroad station. We reached the top of a hill and looked up a long valley, where the creek wound its way, fringed by great cottonwood trees, until its source was lost behind three prominent buttes, purple in the haze of the late afternoon. ”

“ Traveled all day, and made a long drive without meeting anyone or passing a single habitation. We are camping near—what the people west of the Missouri River call—a ranch. There is a long, low log-cabin, with dirt roof, a corral, or inclosure for stock, with very high fence, and two or three wells of water in the vicinity, and that is all. No vegetable garden, no fields of grain, nor anything to make it look like farming. I think it is a stage-station, and the people who occupy do not expect to stay very long. ”

“ That being a mandate, we governed ourselves accordingly. [Pg 95] After we were in camp a few days near the government trail, and about three miles south of the Canadian river, we learned that there was a way-station about a mile and a half north of the river crossing, and that the proprietor kept hunters' supplies and bought hides.
Buck and I rode over to the place and found we were at the Springer ranch. It was built on the block-house, stockade, Indian frontier plan. It faced south towards the river. A square pit six by six feet and six feet deep had been dug inside the building. ”

“ There we had to drive our cattle and receive our freight twenty miles away; but now the railroad runs right along beside us, and the depot is on our side of the track. Jack's ranch borders the road on the other side. The company has laid side tracks for each ranch, and built a good depot. I think, in the course of time, we'll have a far more beautiful home down here than we had up in Colorado. Of course, though, Fred has told you all about the magnificent mineral spring a mile from the railroad and on the ranch. ”

“ Thrifty little towns were springing up along the railroad, land was in demand as a result of the boom in cattle, and an air of prosperity pervaded both city and hamlet and was reflected in a general activity throughout the State. The improved herd was the pride of the Double Mountain ranch, now increased by over seven hundred half-blood heifers, while the young males were annually claimed for the improvement of the main ranch stock. ”

“ From five to fifteen miles, or even more, each way from the ranch, are claimed by each owner or company as a range, though no effort is made usually to keep the stock within these boundaries. They are allowed the freedom of the hills and table-lands in every direction, the foreman merely being required to know about where to find them when wanted, and to prevent them from going, for instance, west of the Tongue and north of the Yellowstone rivers or south into Wyoming. ”

“ And to an Eastern man it appears almost as lonely. Some light-houses are isolated in the ocean, some stand in bays, and some in harbors; and in the same proportion the ranches in Texas differ in size, from principalities to farms no larger than those around Jersey City. The simile is not altogether exact, as there are small bodies of men constantly leaving the “ranch-house” and wandering about over the range, sleeping wherever night catches them, and in this way different parts of the ranch are inhabited as well as the house itself. ”

“ Breeding a few horses and mules for home purposes, and the rearing of cattle has been our occupation. As to merchandising here at the ranch, I could not countenance it, as I refused that privilege to the stage company when they offered to run past Las Palomas. At present our few wants are supplied by a merchant at Shepherd’s Ferry. True, it’s thirty miles, but I sometimes wish it was farther, as it is quite a temptation to my boys to ride down there on various pretexts. We send down every week for our mail and such little necessities as the ranch may need. ”

“ Roy, whose father owned the Triple O ranch, had come out on this round-up about a week previously. On all big ranches it is the custom, at stated intervals to send out a party of men to round-up, or gather together, in herds, the cattle or horses that may have strayed to distant pastures.
Sometimes a week or more is spent on this work, the men sleeping out of doors, and making camp wherever darkness overtakes them. During the night they take turns riding around the cattle, to keep them from straying away. ”

“ From them branched veins supplying the fields with the water that gave them life—the water without which the land was waste and barren; but with which it bore marvellously with the stored fertility of fallow centuries. Away at one end of the ranch, sheltered to north and west by low hills, was the ranch house itself, surrounded by young orchards, the stables, the corrals, the granaries, the cattle sheds, tool and implement houses. ”

“ The ranch is no longer an environment in which one finds the whole activity of his existence, but a dwelling place from which one goes forth.
I will admit that this is probably a distinct gain; but the fact is indubitable that, even in these cases where the ranch life has not been materially changed otherwise, the automobile has brought about a condition entirely new. And as the automobile has fortunately come to stay, the old will never return. ”

“ If any cattle had crossed over the line during the night they would leave a trail of course, and this the rider would follow up until he overtook them. He would then bring them back inside of the line; sometimes though they would come out so thick that half a dozen men couldn't keep them back, for instance, during a bad storm. Under such circumstances he would have to do the best he could until he got a chance to send to the "home ranch" for help. [160]
A young man by the name of John Robinson and myself were put in a Sign camp ten miles south of the river, at the foot of the Staked Plains. ”

“ They are no more ranchmen than the absentee landlord who lives in his London house is a gentleman farmer.
The largest ranch in the United States, and probably in the world, owned by one person, is in Texas, and belongs to Mrs. Richard King, the widow of Captain Richard King. It lies forty-five miles south of Corpus Christi. ”

“ When the ranchman mounts his horse in the morning to make his daily rounds he has a clear field before him. He is "monarch of all he surveys" and practically owns the earth, since his neighbors live many miles away and his road leads in any direction clear to the horizon.
The average ranch is not intended to furnish luxuries, but to serve the best interests of the business in hand, that of growing cattle. It is usually a "stag camp" composed entirely of men who occupy a rude cabin near some convenient spring or stream of water, where they keep house in ranch style and live after a fashion. ”

“ So, then, it was no surprise to the ranchhold when the buckboard spun to the door, and Raidler took up his debile protégé like a handful of rags and set him down upon the gallery.
McGuire looked upon things strange to him. The ranch-house was the best in the country. It was built of brick hauled one hundred miles by wagon, but it was of but one story, and its four rooms were completely encircled by a mud floor "gallery." The miscellaneous setting of horses, dogs, saddles, wagons, guns, and cow-punchers' paraphernalia oppressed the metropolitan eyes of the wrecked sportsman. ”

“ As the rain began to fall in torrents, we heard the men who had been detailed to guard the La Monte place galloping off.
An itinerant tailor had pulled into the ranch just before our return, and was peacefully sleeping in his wagon. He was awakened when the horses were driven into the corral, and came out to learn the cause of the commotion. He was so excited when he heard that an insane person was in the vicinity he asked to sleep at the bunk house with the men. They tried to laugh him out of his fears, but his fright was so genuine they told him to “come on.” ”

“ There were oxen to buy in equipping teams to accompany the stock cattle to the new ranch, two yoke being allowed to each wagon, as it was strength and not speed that was desired. My old foremen rallied at a word and relieved me of the lesser details of provisioning the commissaries and engaging the help. Trusty men were sent to oversee and look out for my interests in gathering the different brands, the ranges of many of them being fifty to one hundred miles distant. ”

“ Even to-day, when peaceful ranches dot the floor of the Spout and the shuf-shuf of Tin Lizzies sounds where once the yip-yip of Zang Whistler's men rounded stolen cattle into a trail herd for surreptitious markets in another State, there are but two ways into the mountains' treasure box: The road that comes from the east over a high shoulder of one bounding wall up to the old Bar C Ranch and another passing up from the south where the Tisdale ranch stands and into the valley through the natural gate at the southernmost end. ”

“ The mystery solved, the boy ranchers turned their attention to other matters, and these are related in the second volume, "The Boy Ranchers In Camp." Mr. Merkel, by using an ancient underground water course beneath Snake Mountain, had brought much-needed moisture to a distant valley he owned, thus making it possible to use it as a place for raising cattle. This new ranch, variously called Happy Valley, Diamond X Second, and Buffalo Wallow, was given in charge of the boys to experiment with. They were allowed to raise cattle on their own responsibility. ”

“ If I’m spared, within the next year, I’ll secure every tract of land for sale adjoining the ranch if it costs me a dollar an acre. Then if it comes to the pinch, Las Palomas will have, for all time, land and to spare. You haven’t noticed the changes in the country, but nearly all this chaparral has grown up, and the timber is twice as heavy along the river as when I first settled here. I hate the sight even of a necessity like a windmill, and God knows we have no need of a railroad. To a ranch that doesn’t sell fat beeves over once in ten years, transportation is the least of its troubles. ”

“ Only vandals leave gates open when they should be closed.
Warner's ranch is a vast meadow, mostly level, but sloping from northeast to southwest, with rolling hills and sunken valleys around its eastern edge. A chain of mountains, steep and timber laden, almost encircles the ranch. For a boundary mark on the northeastern side of the ranch, are steep, rocky and forbidding looking mountains. Beyond them, the desert. The ranch comprises some 57,000 acres, nearly all valley land. ”

“ The old ranching days of California are to all intents and purposes past and gone. To be sure there remain many large tracts supporting a single group of ranch buildings, and over which the cattle wander "on a thousand hills." There are even a few, a very few—like the ranch of which I am going to write—that are still undivided, still game haunted, still hospitable, still delightful. ”

“ Los Pompan was about a week's ride, by easy stages, from Diamond X, and while the trip could have been made by train or auto, the boys decided to take their horses. Considerable in the way of supplies must be taken, and, after all, an auto is not of much use, even the ever-dependable flivver, in riding herd, a round-up or cutting out a bunch of cattle for shipment. Albeit most of the ranchers owned cars which came in handy for going to and fro from town, or getting in food and supplies to the ranch house. ”

“ Yet if, as I suspect, you have an ostrich farm, I can’t blame their curiosity. I’m hoping to visit one, myself.”
“Ours is not a real ‘farm.’ It is just one of the many things our ranch is good for. But I know my mother would make you very welcome. You–but there! Look down, please. Yonder it is, Sobrante. That means ‘richness,’ you know. And now up. The next turn will land us on the mesa, and I hope, I hope, I have come in time!”
10The road had now broadened, and with a little chirrup to King Zulu, she passed and forged ahead so rapidly that she was soon out of sight. ”

“ It would about double the value of the ranch, I think; for, besides diverting the present county [Pg 139] road between San Remo and Sulphide—for everybody would then leave the old hill-road and come past our door instead—it would give us a large piece of new land for growing oats and hay. ”

“ The ranch comprises about 57,000 acres of land, and is the largest body of comparatively level land at even an elevation of 3500 feet in Southern California. It is an immense circular valley, rock ribbed and mountain bound. Out of it, through a narrow gorge to the southwest, flows the San Luis Rey River. The ranch is well watered. Much of it during the winter season is semi-bog or swamp land, and at all times affords wonderful grazing for stock. ”