It goes without saying that so hardy and healthy a creature as this cowpuncher must have his amusements, even at his times of hardest work. The roundup is by no means a succession of dreary experiences, for it is there that one will find the most grotesque exhibitions of cowpuncher vitality and cowpuncher merriment. There probably never was a round-up where the boys did not rope a steer for some ambitious cowpuncher to ride bareback for a wager. This feat is not so easy as it looks, for the hide of a steer, or, worse yet, the hide of a big fat bull, is loose and rolling, so that, as the cowpuncher would say, it "turns plum over between a feller's legs." Sometimes a yearling or a runty little "dogy" is roped for this form of sport, the cowpuncher wreathing his long legs under its belly to its intense disgust and fright, though he probably sits it safely when the ropes are "turned loose" in spite of its antics, for it is the boast of a first-class cowpuncher that he can "ride ary thing that wears ha'r." Sometimes the cowboys enter into competitive tests of skill, trying to see which man can, alone and unassisted, in the shortest space of time, "rope, throw, and tie" a full-grown steer. It would seem almost impossible for one man to perform this feat, yet a good cowpuncher will do it so smoothly and swiftly that neither the steer nor the spectator can tell just how it happened. Yet another little sport on the round-up is sometimes to hitch up a cow and a broncho or "mean" horse together to a wagon, the horse jumping and plunging over the cow to the intense delight of these rough souls, to whom the wildest form of action is the most congenial.
It is taken for granted that all the men engaging in a round-up are good riders, and if it should chance that any one becomes entangled in an argument with a pitching pony, the event is one of great pleasure to his friends, who gather about him and give him encouragement of the cowpuncher sort, with abundant suggestions as to how he shall ride and much insistence that he must "ride him fair." If the cowpuncher is thrown, he is sure to get more jeers than sympathy, but it is his business not to be thrown. Nowadays the horse herd, always one of the picturesque features about the round-up, is losing some of its old interest with the gradual passing away of the habit of bucking or pitching among the range horses. The horse herd is to-day much graded up, as are the herds of cattle, and the modern cow pony may be quite a respectable bit of horseflesh. It is apt to be a more solid and "chunky" animal than the old Spanish pony, just as the cowboy himself is apt to be a more bulky man than the first cowpunchers who came up the Trail. One may note yet other changes. At the strictly modern round-up of to-day one will see few leather "chaps," few heavy hats with wide leather bands, few bucking horses, and no "guns." If we would study the cowpuncher we must do so soon, if we wish ever to see him as he once was at his best; and if we would see a round-up on the range we should not tarry too long, for yearly it becomes more and more restricted, modified, and confined, less and less a wild gathering of the plains, more and more a mere barnyard fixture. The days of the commonplace have come, and well may we mourn the past that has gone by.
The stirring scenes of the round-up, the rush and whirl of the cutting out, the hurry and noise of the branding, the milling of the main herds, and all the gusty life of the wild melee are things to remember as long as one lives, and they readily invite the multifold descriptive efforts that have been given them. Yet aside from the common or conventional pictures there may arise detached ones, some perhaps from out of the past, perhaps wilder and more picturesque than those we may easily find to-day at the focus of affairs upon the range. Memory brings up a little scene far down in the dry and desert region of the Neutral Strip, where once our party of antelope hunters crossed the range where a round-up was in progress. We had noticed the many hoof prints of cattle and horses, all trending in a certain direction, and guessed the cause when we saw the long lines of dust rising and stringing out on the hazy and trembling horizon. In that barren and flinty-soiled region water is a rare thing, and he who does not know the water holes for the country a hundred miles about would far better do his antelope hunting elsewhere. Yet we knew we were near the line of the old cattle trails, and indeed just before noon one day fell upon the wide parallel lines ground out of the hard, gray soil by the thousands of hoofs that had crossed the country in earlier years. Thinking that we should thus come upon water at some time either that day or the next, we followed along the trail, and, as luck had it, within a couple of hours we fell upon a little pool of water by the wayside. It was a very baddish bit of water, muddy, discoloured, trampled, shallow at best, and now hardly sufficient to fill the hoof marks with its greenish-yellow fluid that fairly boiled under the downright rays of the sun. Yet it was water, and such as it was we were glad to find it, since it was the first for more than twenty-four hours. We camped beside it joyfully, feeling that now all the trials of life were past. As we lay there, under such shade as the wagon offered on the blindingly hot day, we saw a trail of dust coming from the line of hills about us, and with the glasses soon made out a squad of mounted men. These came on down to the water hole, and in time were joined there by other men who came from various directions. The party was the mess of a Strip outfit that had been out all day rounding up cattle back of the watering place. The men were hot and tired and covered with dust, but if any one was disposed to grumble he kept it to himself. The cook unfastened the tail-gate of his wagon, and in a twinkling had a kitchen table and pantry right at hand, with flour and meat within reach. Some of the boys kicked together enough of the abundant prairie chips — the only fuel within sixty miles of that point — and soon the preparations for the hurried meal were in progress. When the cook wanted water for his coffee he walked to the pool — in which, by the way, several dead carcasses were lying — and, picking out the point where the water seemed clearest, he calmly dipped up his coffeepot full and returned without comment to the fire. No one said a word about the quality of the water, which really was of a sort to make one shudder at the memory years later, and if the coffee was not good no one complained of it. From the mess box the cook produced his tin dishes, his knives and forks, and table was spread without cloth flat on the dusty and hoof-beaten soil. The heat was glaring, and in it, without suspicion of shade, the men sat, their flannel shirts covered over the shoulders with the white dust of the plains, their broad hats pushed back upon their foreheads as they ate. It was a scene for some better painter or writer than has yet appeared, this dusty, weather-beaten, self-reliant little body of men. Each face of the circle comes to mind clearly even after years of time. They were silent, dignified fellows, these men, not talking much among themselves or with us, though they offered us of what they had, we having apparently convinced them that we were not "on the rustle," we in turn sharing with them what our mess box offered, as it happened some fresh game, which was much appreciated.
Before the meal began each man unsaddled his horse and turned it loose upon the prairie, where it first went to water and then set to feeding on the short sun-burned grass. When it came time to leave camp, the horses were rounded up by the herder, a young boy not over fifteen years of age, whom all the men called "Kid." In their rough way they seemed fond of the boy, who had evidently shown the quality demanded on the plains,