These constant evening discussions, this perpetual arguing, had an unimaginable effect on me. I had no books with me and I was often called on to deal with two or three different theories in a night; I had to think out the problems for myself, and usually I thought them out when hunting by myself in the daytime. It was as a cow- puncher that I taught myself how to think-a rare art among men and seldom practiced. Whatever originality I possess comes from the fact that in youth, while my mind was in process of growth, I was confronted with important modern problems and forced to think them out for myself and find some reasonable answer to the questionings of half a dozen different minds. For example, Bent asked one night what the proper wage should be the ordinary workman. I could only answer that the workman's wage should increase at least in measure as the productivity of labor increased; but I could not then see how to approach this ideal settlement. When I read Herbert Spencer ten years later in Germany, I was delighted to find that I had divined the best of his sociology and added to it materially. His idea that the amount of individual liberty in a country depends on «the pressure from the outside» I knew to be only half true. Pressure from the outside is one factor, but not even the most important: the centripetal force in the society itself is often much more powerful: how else can one explain the fact that during the World War liberty almost disappeared in these States, in spite of the First Amendment to the Constitution. At all times, indeed, there is much less regard for liberty here than in England, or even in Germany, or France: one has only to think of prohibition to admit this. The pull towards the center in every country is in direct proportion to the masses, and accordingly the herd-feeling in America is unreasonably strong. If we were not arguing or telling smutty stories, Bent would be sure to get out cards, and the gambling instinct would keep the boys busy till the stars paled in the eastern sky. One incident I must relate here, for it broke the monotony of the routine in a curious way. Our fire at night was made up of buffalo «chips,» as the dried excrement was called, and Peggy had asked me, as I got up the earliest, always to replenish the fire before riding away. One morning I picked up a chip with my left hand and, as luck would have it, disturbed a little prairie rattlesnake that had been attracted probably by the heat of the camp fire. As I lifted the chip, the snake struck me on the back of my thumb, then coiled up in a flash and began to rattle. Angered, I put my right foot on him and killed him, and at the same moment bit out the place on my thumb where I had been stung; and then, still unsatisfied, rubbed my thumb in the red embers, especially above the wound. I paid little further attention to the matter; it seemed to me that the snake was too small to be very poisonous; but on returning to the wagon to wake Peggy, he cried out and called the Boss and Reece and Dell and was manifestly greatly perturbed, and even anxious.
Reece, too, agreed with him that the bite of the little prairie rattlesnake was just as venomous as that of his big brother of the woods. The Boss produced a glass of whisky and told me to drink it: I didn't want to take it, but he insisted and I drank it off. «Did it burn?» he asked. «No; 'twas just like water!» I replied, and noticed that the Boss and Reece exchanged a meaning look. At once the Boss declared I must walk up and down, and each taking an arm, they walked me solemnly round and round for half an hour. At the end of that time I was half asleep: the Boss stopped and gave me another jorum of whisky; for a moment it awakened me, then I began to get numb again and deaf. Again they gave me whisky; I revived, but in five minutes I sagged down and begged them to let me sleep. «Sleep be d… d!» cried the Boss. «You'd never wake. Pull yourself together,» and again I was given whisky. Then, dimly I began to realize that I must use my will power and so I started to jump about and shake off the overpowering drowsiness. Another two or three drinks of whisky and much frisking about occupied the next couple of hours, when suddenly I became aware of a sharp, intense pang of pain in my left thumb.
«Now you can sleep,» said the Boss, «if you're minded to; I guess whisky has wiped out the rattler!» The pain in my burnt thumb was acute: I found, too, I had a headache for the first time in my life.
Peggy gave me hot water to drink and the headache soon disappeared. In a day or two I was as well as ever, thanks to the vigorous regimen of the Boss. In the course of a single year we lost two young men just through the little prairie snakes that seemed so insignificant.
The days passed quickly till we came near the first towns in southern Texas. Then every man wanted his arrears of salary from the Boss and proceeded to shave and doll up in wildest excitement. Charlie was like a madman. Half an hour after reaching the chief saloon in the town, everyone of them save Bent was crazy drunk and intent on finding some girl with whom to spend the night. I didn't even go to the saloon with them and begged Charlie in vain not to play the fool. «That's what I live for,» he shouted, and raced off. I had got accustomed to spend all my spare time with Reece, Dell, Bob or the Boss, and from all of them I learned a good deal. In a short time I had exhausted the Boss and Reece; but Dell and Bob each in his own way was richly equipped, and while Dell introduced me to literature and economics, Bob taught me some of the mysteries of cow-punching and the peculiar morals of Texan cattle. Every little herd of those half-wild animals had its own leader, it appeared, and followed him fanatically. When we brought together a few different bunches in our corral, there was confusion worse confounded, till after much hooking and some fighting a new leader would be chosen, whom all would obey. But sometimes we lost five or six animals in the melee. I found Bob could ride his pony in among the half-savage brutes and pick out the future leader for them. Indeed, at the great sports held near Taos, he went in on foot where many herds had been corralled and led out the leader amid the triumphant cheers of his compatriots who challenged los Americanos to emulate that feat. Bob's knowledge of cattle was uncanny and all I know I learned from him. For the first week or so, Reece and the Boss were out all day buying cattle; Reece would generally take Charlie and Jack Freeman, young Americans, to drive his purchase home to the big corral, while the Boss called indifferently first on one and then on another to help him. Charlie was the first to lay off: he had caught a venereal disease the very first night and had to lie up for more than a month. One after the other, all the younger men fell to the same plague. I went into the nearest town and consulted doctors and did what I could for them; the cure was often slow, for they would drink again to drown care and several in this way made the disease chronic. I could never understand the temptation; to get drunk was bad enough, but in that state to go with some dirty greaser woman, or half-breed prostitute, was incomprehensible to me. Naturally I enquired about the Vidals; but no one seemed to have heard of them, and though I did my best, the weeks passed without my finding a trace of them. I wrote, however, to the address Gloria had given me before leaving Chicago so that I might be able to forward any letters; but I had left Texas before I heard from her; indeed, her letter reached me in the Fremont House when I got back to Chicago. She simply told me that they had crossed the Rio Grande and had settled in their hacienda on the other side, where perhaps, she added coyly, I would pay them a visit some day. I wrote thanking her and assuring her that her memory transfigured the world for me-which was the bare truth: I took infinite pains to put this letter into good Spanish, though I fear that in spite of Bob's assistance it had a dozen faults. But I'm outrunning my story. Rapidly the herd was got together. Early in July we started northwards driving before us some six thousand head of cattle which certainly hadn't cost five thousand dollars. That first year everything went well with us; we only saw small bands of plains Indians and we were too strong for them. The Boss had allowed me to bring five hundred head of cattle on my own account: he wished to reward me, he said, for my incessant hard work, but I was sure it was Reece and Dell who put the idea into his head. The fact that some of the cattle were mine made me a most watchful and indefatigable herdsman. More than once my vigilance, sharpened by Bob's instinct, made a difference to our fortunes. When we began to skirt the Indian territory, Bob warned me that a small band or even a single Indian might try some night to stampede the herd. About a week later, I noticed that the cattle were uneasy: «Indians!» said Bob when I told him the signs. That night I was off duty, but was on horseback circling round as usual, when about midnight, I saw a white figure leap from the ground with an unearthly yell. The cattle began to run together, so I threw my rifle up and fired at the Indian, and though I didn't hit him, he thought it better to drop the sheet and decamp. In five minutes we had pacified the cattle again and nothing unfortunate happened that night or indeed till we reached Wichita, which was then the outpost of civilization. In ten days more we were in Kansas City entraining, though we sold a fourth of our cattle there at about fifteen dollars a head. We reached Chicago about the first of October and put the cattle in the yards about the Michigan Street depot. Next day we sold more than half the herd, and I was lucky enough to get a purchaser at fifteen dollars a head for three hundred of my beasts. If it hadn't been for the Boss, who held out for three cents a pound, I should have sold all I had. As it was, I came out with more than five thousand dollars in the bank and felt myself another Croesus. My joy, however, was short-lived. Of course I stayed in the Fremont and was excellently received. The management had slipped back a good deal, I thought, but I was glad that I was no longer responsible and could take my ease in my inn. My six months on the trail had marked my very being. It made a workman of me, and above all, it taught me that tense resolution, will power, was the most important factor of success in life. I made up my mind to train my will by exercise as I would train a muscle, and each day I proposed to myself a new test. For example, I liked potatoes, so I resolved not to eat one for a week, or again I foreswore coffee that I loved for a month, and I was careful to keep to my determination. I had noticed a French saying that
