XIX
Autumn came late to Alberta that year, and in the month of November, the cattle were still upon the range. The experienced cowman in Alberta is never deceived by the long sun-laden days of however warm an Autumn. Well he knows that the climate of Alberta is like unto a temperamental woman whose tantrums may burst forth into fury even while her smile lingers.
It is no uncommon thing in Alberta for a period of warm and balmy weather to be electrically broken by amazing storms and blizzards which spring into being out of a perfectly clear blue sky. Sometimes they last but a few hours; sometimes they rage for a week, during which period the effect is devastating to such of the cattlemen who have their stock still upon the range. The cattle caught unawares in the Autumn blizzard upon the open range will sometimes drift for miles before it and have been known to perish literally by the hundreds when trapped in coulie and gulch or driven for shelter against fence line, lie buried body on body. Because, therefore, blizzards are dangerous matters for the cattle to contend with, it is the custom in Alberta to round up in the month of October, and some outfits round up as early as September.
At O Bar O this year there was an atmosphere of restlessness and uncertainty. The riders were all at hand, awaiting word from the chief to set forth upon the Fall roundup; to bring in the cattle loose on the winter range to the home fields, where they would find ample protection under the long cattle sheds, and be given proper care and attention over the winter months.
For more than a month streams of cattle belonging to other outfits had been passing daily along the Banff Highway, coming down from the summer range on the Indian or Forest Reserve, en route to their winter homes on the ranches. This steadily moving army kept the O Bar O outfit on tenterhooks.
Bully Bill, chewing, spitting, moving restlessly about, eager to be off, kept his own counsel so far as the murmuring crew were concerned; but a suggestive question however humorously or pacifically couched anent the matter of O Bar O roundup aroused his irritation and profanity to a hairsplitting degree. The harassed foreman was beside himself with anxiety and uncertainty. The sight of his men slouching about the corrals and the yards aroused both his wrath and his grief. He had worked his wits all through the month of October to find sufficient work to keep his men going, but the work created by the foreman was of a sort for which a rider feels only contempt. November the fifth, and riders—cowpunchers of the great O Bar O ranch hauling logs for fire wood or fence posts! Puttering with fencing, brush-cutting—Indians’ work, by Gad! Snugging up the bunkhouse and barn with dirt and manure for the winter! By Gravy! Those were jobs for tenderfeet and Indians. Not for self-respecting riders. No wonder the fellows were beginning to growl among themselves and cast black looks at the ranch house. Two of them had quit the service of the old ranch, two first-class men, at that, and Bully Bill noted them later upon the Banff Highway, riding with a hated rival outfit.
The O Bar O prided itself on maintaining a prize crew of men. They knew every inch of the range which extended over a hundred and fifty thousand acres into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They knew the brands of half the cattlemen in Alberta. They could pick out O Bar O stock even when the brand was overgrown. At this time of year, skilled labour of this sort were in great demand and could choose their own jobs and demand their own price. If P. D. failed to find them regular men’s jobs, his foreman knew that presently they would give ear to the solicitations of rival outfits.
“Whispering Jake,” owner of the Bar D Ranch in the Jackass Valley, kept his eye “peeled” always for O Bar O hands. Himself unable to keep his men for long, he was satisfied to engage men trained at O Bar O and discharged for one cause or another. “Whisper,” as he was more popularly known—the name having been given to him in derision, because he talked always at the top of his immense voice—had been over the last few weeks, supposedly to look for a roan heifer, which he declared had strayed on to O Bar O. Bully Bill knew very well that the cowman had come, in fact, to look the O Bar O men over and to drop a hint of the amount of advance he was willing to pay over what the men were getting from P. D. “Whisper” made a point of going up $20 a month over O Bar O wages; but he dropped his men as soon as the rush season was over and left them high and dry for the winter. On the other hand, P. D. did not raise his men’s wages in the busy seasons, but kept them on all winter, regardless of slack periods and the drop of price in cattle. At Christmas, moreover, if the stock were in healthy shape and the profit of the business warranted it, O Bar O men received an annual bonus.
This year “Whisper” had learned, through the medium of Holy Smoke, that during the period when the hands of O Bar O were idling about waiting for P. D. to give the order to set out upon the roundup, considerable of the men’s wages had disappeared in poker games played in the bunkhouse, and
