eorge Meyer for
the first time in many years, and he recalled to me an incident on one
round-up where we happened to be thrown together while driving some cows
and calves to camp. When the camp was only just across the river, two of
the calves positively refused to go any further. He took one of them
in his arms, and after some hazardous maneuvering managed to get on
his horse, in spite of the objections of the latter, and rode into the
river. My calf was too big for such treatment, so in despair I roped
it, intending to drag it over. However, as soon as I roped it, the calf
started bouncing and bleating, and, owing to some lack of dexterity on
my part, suddenly swung round the rear of the horse, bringing the rope
under his tail. Down went the tail tight, and the horse "went into
figures," as the cow-puncher phrase of that day was. There was a cut
bank about four feet high on the hither side of the river, and over this
the horse bucked. We went into the water with a splash. With a "pluck"
the calf followed, described a parabola in the air, and landed beside
us. Fortunately, this took the rope out from under the horse's tail,
but left him thoroughly frightened. He could not do much bucking in the
stream, for there were one or two places where we had to swim, and the
shallows were either sandy or muddy; but across we went, at speed, and
the calf made a wake like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.

On several occasions we had to fight fire. In the geography books of my
youth prairie fires were always portrayed as taking place in long grass,
and all living things ran before them. On the Northern cattle plains the
grass was never long enough to be a source of danger to man or beast.
The fires were nothing like the forest fires in the Northern woods. But
they destroyed large quantities of feed, and we had to stop them where
possible. The process we usually followed was to kill a steer, split it
in two lengthwise, and then have two riders drag each half-steer, the
rope of one running from his saddle-horn to the front leg, and that of
the other to the hind leg. One of the men would spur his horse over or
through the line of fire, and the two would then ride forward, dragging
the steer bloody side downward along the line of flame, men following
on foot with slickers or wet horse-blankets, to beat out any flickering
blaze that was still left. It was exciting work, for the fire and the
twitching and plucking of the ox carcass over the