Hard Life on the Western Range   PT I
BY FRANK JENSEN WESTWAYS MAGAZINE

Ross (Rusty) Mussleman places a bit of snuff under one lip, glances around at the alcove that for years served as Cave Spring cowboy camp and reaches back 50 years into his memory."It was cold but dry, and when the weather was bad we'd move the horses in with us," he recalls, remembering his experiences with the Scourp-Soumerville Cattle Compnay (S.S. Cattle Co.) in the late 1930's. "All in all, it wasn't a bad place to live, except for the bugs and varmints." Mussleman points to tin cans nailed to the table legs and explains, "The cans kept the mice out of the grub."
     The great American Cowboy is embedded in folklore as the knight of the open range in spurs and chaps. It's the stuff that myths are made of. But reality is always something different. Life on the range was, in fact, a lean, hardscrabble existence with a horse for a companion and long hours in the saddle tending cattle.
Cave Spring, at the southern end of Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah, provides a glimpse into a vanished slice of life that was part and parcel of the American West during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
     The alcove containing the camp is 30 to 40 feet deep and about 100 feet across. The entrance, partially obscured by undergrowth, can be identified by a gate built of cedar posts and wethered planks. You're free to move about inside and look over hand-hewn furniture that no doubt was made by the cowboys themselves. There's also a row of leather harnesses, reminiscent of a time when all supplies were packed in on horsback or in wagons.
     Broken and correded pots and pans are scatterd about and there's a chuck box that was made to be fitted into the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Carved deep into a tabletop is the name of Bob Shoup, a cowboy riding for the S.S. Cattle Co. in the '30s. The bottom of the cave is not hard-packed as you would imagine, but sandy, making these uncomfortable quarters when the wind blew. Walls and ceilings are coated with soot, mute testimony to the cold nights spent here when cowboys drew what warmth they could from open fires.
     "No more than half a dozen cowboys lived in the cave at any one time," says Mussleman, now in his 70s and retired. Mussleman, who lives in a log cabin he built near Monticello, Utah, wanders about the cowboy camp, turns over pots and pans, fingers the detritus of a long-ago-life-style and remembers.
     The old cowboy, who claims he also spent time as an Indian trader and county sheriff, says wild game furnished meat for the table since the cowboys "were touchy about slaughtering beef." The few delicacies came from the headquarters at the Dugout Ranch, a three- to four- hour ride on horseback.
     "The women at the ranch would do the cooking and would can hundreds of jars of fruits and vegetables each year," Mussleman says. "A lot of what we brought back we'd bury in the sand where it would keep."
     Among the staples of the day were Monticello Flour, K.C. Baking Powder and Aurbuckle Coffee, which came crated in a wooden box. Cooking was over an open fire. Standard fare included Dutch oven cooked beans and sourdough biscuits, along with an occasional helping of home-canned fruits and vegetables and lots of coffee.
     Cave Spring, the sole source of water for miles, is in a separate alcove adjoining the cowboy camp. A metete (corn grinder) found near the spring is evidence of an earlier occupation by Anasazi Indians. There were other out-camps in this region, at places like Spring Canyon, Twin Springs and Dark Canyon. The key element was the location of water. Of the old cowboy camps, only Cave Spring survives.
     Of all the items scattered about the cowboy cave at Cave Spring, only an old bedspring appears out of place to Mussleman. Cowboys always slept on the ground, he scoffs. "They (bedrolls) mainly consisted of two or three heavy wool-lined quilts along with a canvas tarp that was 7 by 14 feet. Some weighed as much as 70 pounds, and when a cowboy moved, he threw his bedroll over the pannier as a kind of cushion for the rest of the load."
     The cowboy's apparel, suprisingly, has changed little over the years. Levi's trousers, cotton shirts and jackets and heavy leather chaps were common. But the boots of yesteryear were handmade, and so tough that Mussleman says, "You could run a wagon over them. A good boot kept the foot in the stirrup...a matter of life and death when riding hell-bent after wild cows"-an activity Mussleman calls "brush popping."
     Mussleman says S.S. Cattle Co. cowboys carried a six-shooter as late as 1938, but not for protection against outlaws. "There was good reason to carry a gun," he explains. "if your horse fell on you and you couldn't get to your feet first, he might stomp you to death. With a six-shooter, you could kill the horse before he killed you."
     As hard a life as cowboying seemed, it was not without humor born out of insight into the human condition. One of the partners of the S.S. Cattle Co., Snuff Soumerville, was as tight with the dollar as they come. Recalls Mussleman, "He hated beans, but ate them and saw to it that everyone else did too because they were cheap. 'Good old beans,'he always said. There came a day when a young cowboy rode into the Dugout Ranch from one of the out-of-camps. At dinner-time all the hands assembled with Snuf Soumerville at the head of the table. 'Good ole beans,' he admonished, passing the food around. Having never met the boss, the young cowboy asked in a voice everyone could hear: 'Who's the old so-and-so at the end of the table who punches one hole in the milk can?' There was a dead silence; then old Soumerville cracked up laughing."

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