Free Cowboy Wisdom by Denis Boyles

shines bright.
    No chaps and no slicker, and it’s pourin’ down rain,
    And I swear, by God, that I’ll not night-herd again.
    Oh, it’s bacon and beans every day;
    I’d rather be catin’ prairie hay.
    I went to the boss to draw my roll;
    He told me I was still nine dollars in the hole.
    I’ll sell my horse and I’ll sell my saddle,
    And you can go to hell with your Longhorn cattle.
    —“Old Chisholm Trail” Traditional c. 1870
    T alkin’ about music.… I used to own a saxophone, but traded it off for a cow. Made about the same noise and gave milk besides.
    —A NONYMOUS
HOW TO FIGURE A COW’S AGE
    Range cattle with horns: In the cow’s second year, the horns start a second growth and a small ring is seen encircling the horn. A second ring appears
     during the third year. These two grooves around the horn disappear as the animal becomes older. From three years on, the growth
     of the horns is marked by a groove that is much deeper. These rings provide an accurate basis for estimating the age of the
     animal. After the animal is three years old, the outer part of the horn plus the first ring are counted as representing three
     years, and each subsequent ring toward the base of the horn is counted as representing one year.
    Polled (hornless) stock: A cow has temporary teeth for the first eighteen months or so. At two years of age, the cow will show two permanent center
     pinchers. At three years, two more permanent teeth form, and at four, two more. At five, the cow has reached maturity and
     all eight teeth on the lower jaw (cattle have teeth only on the lower jaw) will be large, permanent ones. After six years,
     the arch or curve of the teeth gradually loses its rounded contour and it becomes nearly straight by the twelfth year. In
     the meantime, the teeth have become triangular in shape and distinctly separated, showing a progressive wearing down to stubs.
    —F AY W ARD Norfolk, Nebraska 1958
    I t is difficult to believe it, but in times of drouth [cows] actually eat cactus. But they do not eat the cactus because they
     like it. Every spine and tiny sticker, besides being barbed, is tipped with a poisonous venom as painful as the sting of a
     wasp. It makes a wound that swells and throbs and is slow to heal, but the cattle have to endure it. After breaking through
     the outer defenses of a tree-cactus, they eat it out from behind, then lie down with their noses stuck full of spiny joints
     and chew their cud complacently. The inside of their mouths becomes as tough as India rubber, and if they can get enough water
     to dilute the bitter juice they will live on cactus a long time.
    —D ANE C OOLIDGE Berkeley, California 1938

EXPRESS COWS
    W e had a stampede in the territory while Noah Ellis and myself were on herd together. In the run that followed my horse fell
     with me, and I thought the steers would run over me. But I soon learned that steers will not run over a man when he is down
     underfoot. They will run all around a fellow, but I have yet to hear of a man being run over by them.
    —D ICK W ITHERS Boyles, Montana c. 1920
    O ne of the slickest things I ever saw in my life was a cowboy stopping a cattle stampede. A herd of about six or eight hundred
     head got frightened at something and broke away pell-mell with their tails in the air and bulls at the head of the procession.
     But Mr. Cowboy didn’t get excited at all when he saw the herd was going straight for a high bluff, where they would certainly
     tumble down into the cañon and be killed. You know that when a herd like that gets to going it can’t stop, no matter whether
     the cattle rush to death or not. Those in the rear crowd those ahead, and away they go. But the cowboy spurred up his mustang,
     made a little detour, came in right in front of the herd, cut across their path at a right angle and then galloped leisurely
     on the edge of the bluff, halted, and looked around at that wild mass of beef coming right toward him. He was as cool