: Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack Being an Extremely Humorous & Sarcastic Story of the Trials & Tribulations Endured by a Party of Stockmen Making a Shipment from the West to the East. by Benton Frank Filleau E A Illustrator - Benton Frank 1853-1921 Anecdotes;

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jumping down out of their high airy cab on top of the car to build up the fire and see that all the doors and windows below were tightly closed so the stockmen couldn't get no air, but hot air. However, we had been getting hot air from the railroad live stock agents and commission house drummers for some time and slept on till old Chuckwagon begun to snore and woke us up again. It seemed he was having a fearful nightmare, and we had all we could do to keep him from jumping off the train till we got him fairly awake. But after we had each given him a drink from our private bottles he gave several long, shuddering, shivering sighs and told us his dream.

CHUCKWAGON'S DREAM.

He said he dreamed he was in a deep narrow canyon, and it seemed to be a very hot day, and he thought he walked in the broiling hot sun for miles and miles, his mouth and throat parched with thirst and his eyes almost bursting from their sockets with the heat, when all at once he heard the low mutterings of thunder and he knew there was a storm approaching. The thunder kept growing louder and louder, and he looked around for some shelter and discovered a narrow crevice in the rocks, and just as the storm broke he entered this crevice. He hadn't no more than got inside when he saw a wild animal approaching the same place of refuge. It was bigger than any two grizzly bears he ever saw in his life, but was black with white stripes down its back, had a large bushy tail, and he knew he was up against the biggest skunk the world had ever known, and trembling with horror he crept farther and farther back into the crevice till he was stopped by a stream of red molten fire that seemed to be flowing across his path in the mountain. He was about to retreat, but as he turned to retrace his steps the immense Jumbo skunk was coming in the crevice backwards, with its enormous tail reared over its back, and while the crevice seemed only just large enough for him, yet this great animal had a way of flattening himself out that, while he was a great deal taller than before, yet did he keep forcing himself gradually back towards poor Chuck. Chuckwagon said he knew that if the skunk was disturbed he would discharge that terrible effluvia that is known the world over, yet the heat from the molten stream of fire was so great that it burned his face and he was obliged to keep it turned towards the skunk. Finally the animal had backed so far that the top of Chuckwagon's head was just under the root of the skunk's tail. Then something commenced to annoy the animal in front, and it started to back a little farther. It was then he gave that despairing, blood-curdling, soul-freezing yell that woke us up, and he said he could still smell that awful effluvia even now that he was awake; but we told him it was just the heat of the car and the perfume that Jackdo and the two sheepmen had.

We now discovered that the train was in motion. We were in doubt a long time, but after marking fence posts, setting up a line of sticks and testing it by all the known devices, we became convinced that it was really a fact, and when there was no longer any doubt left in our minds we fell on each other's necks and sobbed for joy. We tapped four fresh bottles in succession to celebrate the event and shook one another's hands repeatedly. But, alas! in the midst of our rejoicing we came to a sidetrack.

It seems to be one of the rules of railroading to never pass a sidetrack with a stock train till they find out whether that particular train will fit that sidetrack. This sidetrack was 2,125 feet and 223 inches long and our train just fit it like it had been made a purpose. If our train had been three feet longer it would have been too long for this sidetrack, and we had a long heated argument whether the train had been made for this sidetrack or the sidetrack designed for this special train; but, anyway, I never saw a better fit, and it shows what mechanical heads railroad men have got. We became attached to this sidetrack, and for a long time had the sole use of it. We held it against all comers, trains of empty cars going west, gravel cars and even handcars, but finally had to leave it, and it was with feelings of sadness and regret that we at last had to bid it good-bye. Although we had many sidetracks afterwards, yet as this one was the first we had entirely to ourselves we hated to give it up and our eyelashes were wet with unshed tears as we blew the last kisses from our finger tips when it slowly faded from our sight around a narrow bend in the roadbed. How long it remained true to us we never knew, probably not long, as it was a lonely spot and undoubtedly was occupied by another stock train as soon as we were out of sight.

While at this sidetrack we took a stroll over the hills one day and found a sage hen's nest with the old hen setting. Dillbery Ike slipped up, grasped her by the tail and in her struggle to free herself she lost all her tail feathers and got away. Dillbery tied a string around the tail feathers and took them along. This, as it turned out afterwards, was very fortunate, as we were able by the feathers to settle a dispute that might have led to serious consequences, which happened in this way: Some time after the sage hen episode, while we were waiting on a sidetrack one day for a gravel train going west, and having had nothing to eat for a long time but mustard on ice, we had become very much discouraged and had even tried to buy Cottswool Canvasback's coat to make soup of, when Jackdo discovered a flock of half-grown young sage chickens feeding along past the train, and immediately we were all out, filled our hats with rocks and commenced to knock them over. We managed to kill the most of them along with the old mother bird, and made the startling discovery that she had lost her tail feathers. We showed her to the division superintendent, who came along in his private car just then and stopped to explain some of the delays on our run, and told him the story of Dillbery pulling out her tail when she was setting. The superintendent argued it couldn't be the same hen, but when Dillbery got the bunch of tail feathers they just fitted in the holes in the poor old bird's rump and that settled the dispute. There was another little incident occurred afterwards that shows the world isn't so large after all. One day while we were waiting on a sidetrack a mud turtle came strolling by, and as Jackdo had suggested turtle soup for old Chuckwagon, who, by the way, had been feeling bad ever since the night he had the skunk dream, not being able to keep anything on his stomach, we captured the turtle and on examining a peculiar mark on the back of its shell discovered it was Dillbery Ike's brand that he had playfully burnt into the animal the day before we left the ranch with the cattle.

GRAZING THE SHEEP.

It's not generally known that when sheep get extremely hungry they eat the wool off one another, but nevertheless this is a fact, and Cottswool Canvasback and Rambolet Bill's sheep had long ere this devoured all the wool off each other's backs, but we had had a couple good warm showers of rain and the wool had started up again and was high enough for pretty fair grazing, so the two sheepmen were middlin' easy, as they had a receipt for cooking jackrabbits so they wouldn't shrink in the cooking. They claimed that Manager Gleason of the Warren Live Stock Company had invented this receipt. However, lambing season had come on and Cottswool and Rambolet were kept pretty busy as double deck cars was very cramped quarters to lamb in. Rambolet wanted to unload the sheep, and when they got through lambing to drive them to Laramie City and catch the train again, but Cottswool Canvasback said they would have to pay the same tariff for the cars and insisted on the railroad company earning their money.

JACKDO SINGS "HOME, SWEET HOME."

I remember a pathetic little incident that occurred about this time. When we were waiting on a sidetrack one evening I suggested to Jackdo that he sing us a song to while away the time, and he started in singing "Home, Sweet Home," in a choked-by-cinders sort of voice, and he hadn't been singing long before I discovered old Chuckwagon and Dillbery Ike lying face downward on the seats sobbing like their hearts would break. Chuck and Dillbery didn't have much of a home, as they batched in little dobe shacks away out on the edge of the plains; but that old song, even if sung by a hoot owl, would make a stockman weep when he is on a stock train and has got about half-way to market. However, it didn't seem to affect Eatumup Jake much, and yet Jake had married a big, buxom, red-headed Mormon girl about six weeks before we started to ship. While Jake looked like he was in delicate health when we left home, yet he had grown strong and hearty on the trip in spite of the privations and sufferings we had to go through, and was pretty near always whistling in a lively way "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

We now arrived at a town. It was about two o'clock in the morning and the conductor roused us up to tell us we would have to change way-cars, as they didn't go any farther. We asked him which way to go when we got off, and he said go anyway we wanted to. We asked him where our car was that we would go out on, and he said, "Damfino." So we started out to hunt it. This was a division station, there were hundreds of cars in every direction and they had put us off a mile from the depot. We begged piteously from everyone we met to tell us where the way-car was that went out on the stock train. We carried our luggage back and forth, fell over switch frogs in the darkness and skinned our shins, fell over one another trying to keep out the way of switch engines, ran ourselves out of breath after brakemen, conductors, engineers and car oilers, but everyone of them gave us the same stereotyped answer, "Damfino." At last we started out to hunt up the stock again, but just as we found it they started to switching. However, we climbed on the sides of the cars and hung on, all but poor old Chuckwagon, who had been sorter under the weather and wasn't quite quick enough. But he chased manfully after us till we came to a switch, when we dashed past him going the other way. We hollered to him to follow the train, which he did, but only to find us going the other way again. And thus we kept on. How long this would have lasted I don't know, for old Chuck was game to the death and had throwed away his coat, vest, hat and boots and was bound to catch them stock cars, and the switchman and engineer was bound he shouldn't. But finally the engine had to stop for coal and water, and they shoved us in on a sidetrack, went off to bed and left us there till 10 o'clock the next day. But I never shall forget the anguish and horror we endured for fear we wouldn't find that way-car and they would pull the stock out and leave us there. Packsaddle Jack gave it as his opinion that the railroad people had plotted to do that, but we frustrated their designs by getting on the stock cars and staying with them. We all believed Packsaddle Jack was right, but since that time I've talked with a good many cattlemen and found out that's the way they treat everybody.

LETTERS FROM HOME BROUGHT BY IMMIGRANTS.

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