buckaroos and the new york thicket.

when I was a young man, workin in a feedyard part time and going to college part time I made the aquaintence of a couple buckaroos my age who were going to school in Arizona.  they regaled me with their wild cow stories and spent a lot of time lookin down their noses at a " feedyard cowboy". kinda like I was beneath their  self appointed positions in life.  well it so happened that the out fit I worked for had some cattle that had strayed to the new York thicket on the gila river.  this thicket was long wide and just plain nasty. you could go for miles in grown over trails like tunnels.  then you might get a clearing with enough room to catch a cow brute.  then you might have to lead what you caught  miles to a trailer to haul them out.  this one weekend I wasn't needed at the feed yard so I invited my new found Nevada friends to go with me and another cowpuncher to the thicket. there was a 50 doller bounty on anything that belonged to the feed yard. good money for the day and time.  besides it was a lot of fun. when we arrived on the bluff over looking the river and unloaded our horses there on the open flat between us and the thicket were a half dozen steers we were lookin for. the sun wasn't up yet and it was just light enough to see the shadowy figures of those cattle down below .  the buckaroos arrived, unloaded their horses and started talking load and banging things around while they saddled up, and put their Bermuda chaps on. ( chinks). all the while we are trying to get them to quiet down, but they haven't yet figured it out.  we set out finally telling these know it alls that the cattle were right below us and trying to explain we needed to get between them and the thicket.  instead they jumped the gun and made a mad run at the bunch swinging their big loops hell bent on roping something. there was no way but for us to try to catch what we could.  the buckaroos both missed with those big loops and my friend and I hit the thicket on the tails of the steers. at the first clearing we each caught a steet . the dead limbs were stacked up across the front of our saddles and our jackets were ripped in a dozen places each. the buckaroos wernt in sight. four hours later we finaly led our steers out of the thicket to the trailers. the buckaroos were gone. I guess the thought of those mesquite thornes  was a bit much for them boys. no chaps, taps or brush jackets. and those dickey bird flat brimmed hats just didn't work in that thicket. those boys didn't wanna go with us any more.