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Updated: May 7, 2025
This really being the signal for greater speed, the deer had bolted across the tundra, at last spilling Johnny and his load of Chukche plunder over a cutbank. This procedure did not please the Chukches, and Johnny was not given a second opportunity to drive.
Presently the trail turned abruptly up a gully leading into the hills. A huge cutbank, jutting into the river, barred the way in front, and its precipitous side, a hundred feet or more in height, kept continually crumbling and falling into the stream. These cutbanks are a terror to inexperienced riders.
Here the current had created a precipitous cutbank, and to avoid it and the stream the trail wound over the side of the hill. As they crested a corner the silver ribbon of the Y.D. was unravelled before them, and half a dozen miles down its course the ranch buildings lay clustered in a grove of cottonwoods and evergreens.
After all his winding about in the gully he was not more than a mile from the cutbank. "I reckon I could get a great view from that cutbank of what Landson is doin'," he suddenly remarked to himself. He took off his hat and scratched his tousled head in reflection.
On reaching the latter, we found an easy stage of water for crossing, though there was every evidence that the river had been on a recent rise, the débris of a late freshet littering the cutbank, while high-water mark could be easily noticed on the trees along the river bottom.
A loose horse swims easily, however, and our remuda readily faced the current, though it was swift enough to carry them below the passageway on the opposite side. By this time the lead cattle were adrift, and half a dozen of us were on their lower side, for the footing under the cutbank was narrow, and should the cattle become congested on landing, some were likely to drown.
The men were bandits who had robbed the paymaster of the Ortez Mines. To Waring there was nothing complicated about the matter. It was his day's work. The morning sun would be in their faces, but that was not his fault. As Waring waited in the arroyo the faint clatter of shod hoofs came from above. He drew close to a cutbank, leaning his shoulder against it easily.
Their reasons were made clear enough when, a fortnight later, we crossed Red River, where a newly made grave was pointed out to us, amongst others of men who had lost their lives while swimming cattle. Once the bulk of the cattle were safely over, with no danger of congestion on the farther bank, they were allowed to loiter along under the cutbank and drink to their hearts' content.
There were nights when he shivered over a pine-knot fire in the shelter of a cutbank with the temperature fifteen degrees below zero. At this work he won the respect of his fellows. He could set his teeth and endure discomfort with any of them. It was at sharp danger crises that he had always quailed. He never shirked work or hardship, and he never lied to make the way easier or more comfortable.
"If you had been a cow puncher instead of a contractor," she told him, "I'm sure you would long ago have ended your life in some dash over a cutbank." Meanwhile Drazk pursued his way to town.
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