Wild Roses: A Tale of the Rockies

Some unpoetic old frontiersman first called the place a trapper’s “hole,”--an ugly, misleading name for this wondrous mountain valley, lying up there on the western slopes of the Continental Divide next to the Yellowstone country, almost surrounded by a rim of craggy, snow-streaked mountains, and grassy, wooded hills, out of whose picturesque canyons streams came leaping and sparkling to make a silvery network over the valley floor and to combine at last into the beautiful river that winds along the base of the western hills. This web of streams may still be traced as one gets a kind of bird’s-eye view of it from the hills above; but irrigation has given a conventional aspect to the valley floor by checkering it with farms, dotting it with regularly laid out towns and cities, and marking it with surveyors’ roads and canals.

Some thirty years ago, when the first wave of colonization broke over the rim of this valley, it was still nature’s playground, the haunt of herds of antelope, elk and deer. A few widely scattered ranch shacks, a trapper’s hut or two, with occasionally a group of tepees, pitched temporarily by some wandering band of Indians, were the only human habitations within its borders.

There were no garden roses in the valley then, but the wild ones ran riot along the streams among a tangle of thorns, sending their sweet fragrance everywhere.

In that not-so-long-ago time, one day in July, the month of roses there, the valley lay dozing under the spell of the noontide heat. A warm haze spread over the drowsy hills; the cooling canyon breezes were asleep; even the quaking aspens were still; the sky was cloudless; there was nothing to keep the sun from pouring down all of its rays fiercely upon the scene.

To escape its scorching heat, everything had sought the shade except the grasshoppers and locusts; they were reveling in the burning brightness, dancing and singing all over the grassy and sage-spread flats.

The cowboys at the Bar B ranch were sprawled about on their bunks, sleeping after their noonday meal--all but Jim Hardy. He stood out under the porch-like projection of the old log shack, making faces at himself in a broken mirror as he worked with a dull razor to shave the brown stubble off his square-set jaws and chin. Topsy and Rock, the ranch dogs, lay near him, lazily snapping at the buzzing flies.

When the scraping process was done, Jim rubbed his persecuted face to comfort it a little, and then stepped inside of the shack to get a drink. As he was enjoying his second cup of coolness, his attention was suddenly turned on Dick Davis, lying there with his half-open mouth emitting a purring snore. The spirit of rough fun, always strong in Jim, found expression as usual; he dashed the rest of the cup of water into Dick’s face.

Dick jumped up choking and sputtering and swearing at his tormentor, who stood laughing over his victim’s discomfiture.

“It’s a hill of a racket ye’re makin’,” said Pat Kelsey, the cook; “can’t ye let a feller slape a little?”

“Oh, cut out your sleepin’; let’s do some celebratin’. Have you forgotten it’s the glorious Fourth of July? Come, have a drink with me, Pat.” He dashed a cup of water into the waking Irishman’s face.

“Ye dirty son of a Yankee!” blurted Pat, jumping up, and making for the joker; “it’s auld Ireland that can lick you, if auld England didn’t.”

“Stop, or I’ll shoot,” said Jim, jerking a flask of whisky out of his hip pocket, and pointing it at the wrathful cook.

“Be jabers, if it’s loaded,” said Pat, checking himself, “I’ll give up.”

He grabbed the bottle out of Jim’s hand, uncorked it, and said, “Here’s to Ameriky, the land that Saint Patrick Henry didicated to liberty.” Then he took a long drink and smacked his lips.

The rest of the boys, roused by the noise, were laughing over the fun.

“Pass the bottle around, Pat,” said Jim; “drink hearty, boys.”

Every one but Dan Miller and Fred Benton took a drink; they passed the bottle on with thanks.

“Oh, will, boys,” said Pat, “there’s more for them as likes it.” He raised the bottle and took another drink.

A wild thumping of horses’ hoofs was heard outside. The boys jumped up and reached the door just as a band of half-tipsy cowboys from Morgan’s and other ranches, with Bud Nixon at their head, charged up to the shack. They checked their ponies with a suddenness that sent the gravel flying in front of them.

“Hello, you stags!” shouted Nixon; “got anything to drink?”

“Sure an’ we have,” returned Pat; “bring the bucket, Tiddy, and water ’em.”

“Oh, to hell with your water; give us some whisky.”

“Well, seein’s it’s you,” said Jim, reaching up the flask. It soon went the rounds and returned empty.

“Got any race horses?” said Nixon.

“Yes, a whole herd of ’em that can kick dust in your eyes.”

“Talk’s cheap, but it takes money to buy whisky. Bet ye my bridle ’gin yours that my horse can outrun yours.”

“It’s a go. Your bridle’s mine,” said Jim, starting for the barn, while the rest of the boys continued bantering one another and matching their ponies for other races.

A race track, about a quarter of a mile stretch along the dusty road, was chosen. Dick Davis and Bill Peters were selected as starters. Dan Miller and Tick Johnson were the judges. Pat was elected stakeholder.

The first race was between Silver Bill, one of the blooded animals of the Morgan ranch, and Tex, Jim’s best saddle horse. The two cowboys, with saddles and with chaps on, jogged off to the starting place and began to play for a good start.

Suddenly they whirled and leaped together across the line towards the goal, the eager riders leaning low with quirts flying. Jim’s horse held an easy lead for nearly half the way, then he lost it, the longer-winded roan gradually slipping up and past him. When they dashed by the judges, Bud was full two rods ahead.

“You made me eat dirt square enough,” said Jim, jerking off his silver-mounted bridle and tossing it to Bud. “That’s a good horse you’ve got.”

“Yes, ’n he kin beat any cayuse in this hole,” boasted Bud.

“Got anything beside talk to stake on that?”

“My saddle ’gin yours.”

“Pull ’er off, and stack her here with mine.” Jim loosed the cinches as he spoke, jerked off his saddle and flung it over by Pat.

“Here, Teddy, get your little mare. Let’s take the cackle out of this crow.”

“All right, Jim, if you say so; but I don’t know what Brownie can do. I’ve never run a race with her.”

“That’s my risk. Get yer mare.”

Fred went back to the shack, took a pan of oats, and walked over to the pasture bars to call Brownie. Hearing him, she raised her pretty head and trotted nimbly up to him. He threw his arm over her glossy neck while she enjoyed the taste of grain, then slipped the bit into her willing mouth, leaped on her and rode over to the boys.

He reached them just in time to see a “joke race” pulled off between Freckles, a pinto squaw pony belonging to Hen Sikes, a big cow-puncher from the Morgan ranch, and Meg Murphy, a tall and lanky old mare that Pat had purchased for five dollars from a stranded emigrant who was passing through the valley. It was a comical sight to see the plump cook perched on his high-backed steed, his smooth face held sober, but his bright eyes twinkling with fun; and beside him tall Hen, with his long legs dangling almost to the ground over the little pony’s back. The race was funnier still. The cowboys howled and whooped to see the two coming, Pat making clown antics to keep his big mare going; the little Indian pony struggling to carry his big load through first; but in spite of all Pat’s efforts, Freckles won the race, leaving Meg full fifty yards behind.