As with all other forms of work, so on the round-up, a man of ordinary
power, who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because they are
disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. There were crack riders
and ropers who, just because they felt such overweening pride in their
own prowess, were not really very valuable men. Continually on the
circles a cow or a calf would get into some thick patch of bulberry bush
and refuse to come out; or when it was getting late we would pass some
bad lands that would probably not contain cattle, but might; or a steer
would turn fighting mad, or a calf grow tired and want to lie down.
If in such a case the man steadily persists in doing the unattractive
thing, and after two hours of exasperation and harassment does finally
get the cow out, and keep her out, of the bulberry bushes, and drives
her to the wagon, or finds some animals that have been passed by in the
fourth or fifth patch of bad lands he hunts through, or gets the calf
up on his saddle and takes it in anyhow, the foreman soon grows to treat
him as having his uses and as being an asset of worth in the round-up,
even though neither a fancy roper nor a fancy rider.
When at the Progressive Convention last August, I met George 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.
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