Horse Tradin' (30 page)

I had been carrying on this kind of a battle every
morning for about three weeks. It was taking me twice as long to tend to my steers as it should have, and I decided I had to have another work team. One Saturday morning I hooked them up to the wagon loaded with feed and started through the pasture gate; just as I got the gate open, they came through it and tried to run away. They hung the back wheel on the gatepost, broke the coupling-pin, and ran off with the four wheels. It just happened they ran astraddle a tree—got it between them—and didn't get very far. But this was the final performance that made it easy for me to get rid of them.

The ranch was about thirty-five miles west of Fort Worth; so Sunday morning I saddled up a good saddle horse, led this pair of great big horses over to Fort Worth, took them to Ross Brothers Horse and Mule Barn, and checked them in to be sold the next day at the auction. I got a stall for my saddle horse and cleaned him off and fed him good before I went up to Mrs. Brown's boardinghouse to spend the night.

This was a big old boardinghouse on top of the hill overlooking the horse and mule barns, on the west end of Exchange Avenue. It was kind of horse traders' headquarters, and it was about the only place along about then that I knew to spend the night in Fort Worth—unless I went away over across town to the big hotels.

Next morning I was out at the horse and mule barns early, looking around to pick me out a good team that I knew would be safe and a sure-pull and wouldn't cause me any more grief through the winter while I was trying to tend to those steers. Since I had gotten in with my horses Sunday, they were in the early part of the sale Monday morning.

When they came in the ring, Jim Shelton was doing the auctioneering. He looked down and saw my name on the ticket and said: “Ben, tell me about these horses.”

I said: “Well, they're a big stout pair of green-broke horses.” My name was Green and I had put the breakin' on them—what little they'd had—so I guessed I could say they were green-broke, although that usually just meant a pair of horses that hadn't been worked much. Anyway, they sold for more money than I had hoped to get for them.

I had been up and down the alleys and back of the barns and looked at some horses and some mules. I had watched them hook-in some various teams of mules to the try-wagon out in front, to see how they would work. I had decided that a good pair of steady mules would be better for me to try to finish feeding cattle through the winter than horses would be. Mules are always more dependable to a wagon in a hard pull, and they usually are quieter than horses are; so I had made up my mind that I'd buy me a nice pair of mules.

I sat there and watched horses and mules sell for three or four hours and got pretty well posted on what I thought mules like I wanted ought to bring when they'd come in the auction ring. About two-thirty in the afternoon I had already decided that I couldn't ride home and lead a team of mules that day—that I'd have to stay over; so I wasn't in too big a hurry to spend my money.

Late that afternoon a great big nice pair of dapple-gray mare mules came into the ring. They were well made and fat, they had good dispositions, and when the man led them around the ring he touched their ears to show they weren't shy about their ears when they were being
bridled. Parker Jamison looked in their mouths—he was the ring man—and he hollered out loud: “The prettiest mouths you ever saw. Mark 'em about eight-year-olds.”

Wad Ross started them at $200. A few people bid on them—people you could see were commenting on them. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but there was something unusual. The bidding went up to $240, and I bid $250. Didn't anybody else raise my bid. Two or three fellows turned around and looked where I was standing to see who it was bid the $250. I just thought to myself that they were looking at me because I knew a good team when I saw it.

Well, directly Jim Shelton—he was the auctioneer—knocked the mules off to me and hollered: “Sold!”

I watched them go out at the gate and run down the plank alley. They were so near alike, you would have thought they were twins. I saw the pen they turned into, and I had got the numbers off their hips while they were in the ring. When you bid on horses or mules and bought them, then a ticket boy would bring you a ticket. So when I got the ticket, I tore off down the barn alley to look at the mules I'd bought.

I walked in the pen and drove them out on the plank alley to themselves and stood there and looked at them and rubbed them a little bit with my hands. Oh, they were nice, well-made, beautifully dappled mules. I got ahold of the barn foreman and asked if he couldn't put them off in a separate pen where wouldn't anything happen to them—they wouldn't get skinned up or maybe kicked in the night.

He was real nice, said he knew I was proud of that pair
of mules and he didn't blame me—he would be proud of them, too—and that he would put them over to one side in a pen to themselves. Of course he knew me, knew I was horseback. He said he would sure help me with them and I could go on and forget them.

Well, I had seen a lot of horse and mule selling that day and I was kind of tired of the barn; so I got on the streetcar and rode over to the big main part of Fort Worth to eat a big steak at the Siebold Hotel. I went up to the picture show—the Majestic Theater—and saw Richard Dix in
Cimarron
. Then I went back to Mrs. Brown's boardinghouse and went to bed about nine-thirty. I had a long ride ahead of me the next morning.

I got to the horse and mule barn by daylight. After two nights and one day's rest, my saddle horse was in good shape and ready to go. I got him saddled and rigged out and got my mules out. They had nice woven grass halters on them like used to come on horses and mules that were bought at auctions, and I tied a long lead rope to these halters. Somebody held my lead rope while I got on my saddle horse, handed me the lead rope, and I started out of the horse and mule market and up Exchange Avenue. I was going to hit the White Settlement Road and head out west. It was pretty chilly, but not real cold, and the sun not near in sight.

I was way out in the edge of town before it got good sun-up, and my horse settled down to a nice long sweeping walk. This was a good pair of mules, and they traveled nice and walked right up by my horse. I crossed plank bridges with them and they didn't shy or pull back—or get scared from meeting anybody—and the farther I went toward home with them, the better I liked them and the
prouder I was of them. It was a little after dark when I rode into the ranch, and I put my new mules in a small pasture next to the barn and gave them plenty of feed. I turned my saddle horse loose and fed him and went to bed thinking how much nicer it was going to be to tend my cattle through the rest of the winter with the right kind of a work team.

This was about the nicest colored pair of dapple-gray mare mules anybody ever saw. The dappling was real smooth and beautiful and uniform over their hindquarters and up and down their sides and around their shoulders. Their heads and necks were just a little lighter color, just as they should be. Then their feet and legs from their knees and their hock joints to the ground were real dark, just the way they should be. They had a beautiful color for a pair of eight-year-old mare mules, just about as nice as anybody could ever have wished for. I don't believe a real good artist could have painted them any more perfect than they were.

In the meantime, I had left instructions to get my wagon brought in and fixed, and I had the wheels and the coupling-poles all ready to hook up to it that morning and start back to feeding my cattle. I got these mules out, and I had to let the harness out some to where it would fit them. They were a nice, big pair, and it took big harness to fit them. I had several collars, and I had to change around until I got the collars that would fit on them good—to where they could pull good and not hurt their shoulders. I just could hardly take my eyes off of them, they had such a beautiful dapple-gray color.

I hooked up to the wagon and drove them around the lot two or three times to the empty wagon. They didn't
do a thing wrong. They didn't make a bobble or take a wrong step. And I backed them up to the crib of the barn where I loaded my feed, dropped my lines, and said: “Woah.” They just stood there. As I threw feed into the wagon I made noise throwing the sacks around; they never moved. I finally had a team that were just broke to perfection.

I put on a big load of feed and started out through the pasture. It was a big old long rough pasture, some hills and bad places to pull over, and one place I went down into the valley and across the creek. It was the common way you forded a creek—no bridge or nothing—and coming out of the bank on the other side it was a little slick. The load was heavy, and these mules got down just as smooth and even and pulled with each other as steady as you every saw a team pull. It was quite a relief from the work team I'd had in that pair of horses.

I had my saddle horse leading behind, tied to the back of the wagon. I drove up to the feed grounds where generally I'd feed my cattle, and they weren't all there. I called and hollered a few times, and you could hear a few cattle bawl. Some were coming; some were up on the side of the mountain and weren't trying to get down there to the feed grounds. I left my new team standing with the lines done up, but not tied to any kind of a tree or post or hitched in any way. I thought: “This pair of mules is so perfect, they won't run off with the wagonload of feed.”

I got on my saddle horse and loped up in the hills and started the cattle moving toward the feed ground. I circled around, and after I knew everything was coming in good, I rode back down to the wagon. There that pair of dapple-gray mules stood, just perfect. They hadn't offered to get
scared or run off or twist around or try to graze or do anything that a good mule oughtn't to do.

I fed my cattle at this pasture and tied my horse to the back of the wagon again. I stepped in and took the lines down from the stick I had them wrapped around. Since I had unloaded some of my feed, I trotted my mules off in a pretty good trot and started over into another pasture about a mile away. This good pair of mules didn't mind trotting to the load. They stayed in step good, and it was a pleasure to stand up in the wagon and look over them and watch how nice they worked. It was just hard to believe an eight-year-old pair of mules would be so near perfect.

By the time I got to the next feed ground, they had begun to break a sweat a little around the collars and up and down the backhands and around where the breeching worked on their hindquarters. I didn't think a little sweat hurt a mule, so I just trotted them on to the next feed ground. I had to round the cattle up in this pasture, and I left my mules standing out in the feed ground, close to a feed trough. They were just perfect. They stood there until I got back. I rode up and put out the feed and tied my horse back to the wagon. I had one more pasture to feed.

I drove across the creek again and up the bank on the other side—pulled them pretty hard. I thought there was a little dirt working out of their hides and their hair maybe. I noticed some black lines coming along the backbands and around the collars where the sweat worked out. I didn't think much about it, only I just thought they sure were a nice pair of mules to be that dirty. I hadn't noticed too much dirt in their hides when I was harnessing
them, but that didn't bother me much. I stopped them at the next feed ground to wind up my morning's work. It was kinda clouding up and misting a little bit, and these cattle came to feed better than the others had.

I did the reins up on my saddle horn. My saddle horse knew the way back to headquarters—he didn't have to follow the wagon—so he trotted on out the road in front of us, and I stepped the mules up to a good brisk trot. When they moved out, I noticed the backhands were working the sweat back and forth—and that every time they did, the hair got a little whiter around the backbands and a little bit more dirt piled up and down that ridge. There was a little sweat coming on their hind legs, and I noticed some black lines running down their legs. I didn't think much about that. I just thought these mules must have been wallowing somewhere in the blackland and just had a lot of dirt down next to the hide—and I hadn't noticed it.

When I went through the last pasture gate and started up to the house, a little shower came and sort of washed everything off. It was a quick little hard shower, and I pulled my jacket up over my head and rode along. The mules were trotting along good; my saddle horse was on ahead, probably to the barn by now; I wasn't looking too close—just letting the mules go, following the road at a good brisk trot. When we pulled up at the barn another pretty hard shower hit, and I ran in the barn. I thought I would stay until it let up, and then I would unhook my team.

Well, my team was pretty warm—of course, it wouldn't hurt a good mule to get rained on—so I stood in the feed room a few minutes until it slowed raining, and
then I went out. I was keeping my head kinda ducked—to keep the rain from hitting me in the face—as I unhooked the traces and unhooked the coupling-pole and drove the mules up to the edge of the barn where the water wouldn't hit quite so much. I went to taking off the collars and the harness, and after I stripped it off and hung it up in the barn—I turned around and looked.

My mules had sure bleached out a batch—between getting sweaty and getting rained on! And I had a lot of stain all over my hands—and all over my sleeve where I had run my hand through the harness to carry it in and hang it up in the barn!

By this time I had forgot that it was misting rain, and I rubbed my hand down one mule's neck and across where the collar had worked—and I just rubbed off great, big, wide streaks of those beautiful dapples. And the farther I rubbed, the more dapples I rubbed. And the more I rubbed, the sicker I got. When it got through raining, and I got through rubbing, I had a pair of mules as white as gray mules can get in a lifetime. Now, they were just as white as white mules ever get to be! This was sure the first time I ever lost $100 on a pair of mules in two days—without one of them dying.