Welcome to the West as I see it

Cowboys are the aristocrats of all wage earners. As such, there are two or three things which are absolutely essential for their well being: well-trained, prestigious looking horses, a good hat and a good rope.

Dan had the horse department covered with Slats. And he was following Tex’s advice about roping.

Since the last problem had been roping his heel horse’s front feet occasionally, Dan went to see what Tex had to say.

Tex advised getting a rope his horse could see and then he wouldn’t step in the loop. So Dan went down to the feed store, looked over all the brightly colored twines and came out with one of the new Roper Vision ropes – a glow-in-the-dark lime green.

This iridescent wonder came with a pair of matching sunglasses, the theory being that the roper would better focus on his rope when wearing them.

Dan didn’t follow this logic as it he wasn’t the one having trouble seeing a regular colored rope, but most definitely, Slats wasn’t going to get the sunglasses.

He decided that a little pasture roping might help Slats out with his difficulty of stepping into a heel loop. Tim came to help him out. The project was not a wasted effort. They needed to doctor a few yearlings who had picked up something at the sale barn.

At the pasture they rode through all the new cattle slowly and doctored each one who needed a shot. Job well tended to they decided to practice with Dan’s new rope a little. The owner of the cattle had just driven up to the pasture fence and was just watching the entire operation, but the cowboys weren’t aware of their audience.

After watching the operation through the initial doctoring, the cow boss walked out to the ropers and asked, “What you boys doing now?”

“Why, we’re roping and doctoring the sick cattle.”

The owner allowed he had seen quite a bit of roping, but he hadn’t seen any shots given.

Dan, quick with his wit, answered sincerely, “Last night I soaked my rope in a bucket of penicillin and there’s no need to give a shot. And, besides that, we been looking at these cattle and thought we might need to check and see if some of them had a bone in their leg.”

Good help is hard to find, so begrudgingly, the cow boss decided to tend to some of his other business.

Change of seasons will dictate straw hat time. While he was putting his paycheck in circulation with the rope, Dan had picked out a brand new straw too.

He really hated to part with the extra money, but there were some awful pretty girls at the team ropings lately, and he knew that one of the secrets to good looks is a good hat. They are pretty hard to get to fitting right, and he was wearing it a little to get the sweat band broke in before going to the Saturday arena roping.

This morning’s job was to do a little tractor shredding in the horse trap. Dan got the shredder hooked up, was moving right along with the blades cutting down the old grass neatly when a little puff of wind hit. Lifted that new straw right off his head and next thing he heard was “Brrrrrrtt,” shredding more than he had planned.

Those pretty girls were just going to have to be impressed with Slats and the new lime green rope. Two out of three ain’t bad for an aristocrat.

© 2008 Julie Carter

DAN the TEAM ROPER