Scouting, Volume 97, Number 5, November-December 2009 Page: 34
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Scouting Magazine and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.
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Life Scouts Lucas Sloan (above left) and Tom
Brubaker gallop across the Cimarron River. At
left, First Class Scout Spencer Rodrigues (left)
and Life Scout Kevin Hayes soak the chuck
wagon's dried-out wheel in a pond.
veteran cowhands had warned them
that crossing Oklahoma's Cimarron
River could be dangerous. Townsend
warned them, too.
Quicksand had swallowed up
the trail boss' horse to its belly the
week before the Scouts and five adult
leaders arrived from Sunnyvale, Calif.
"I've been crossing the river for years,"
Townsend said, "and I've never seen it
so bad as this summer?'
That morning, after long days of
adjusting to the worst heat of the 21st
century, getting to know their horses,
learning basic cowboy skills, and
driving a herd of 76 Longhorn steers,
the boys faced their first big challenge.
Just like the 19th-century cowboys on
their two-month cattle drives from
South Texas to Abilene, Kan., the
group was going to ford a river.
During summer months, the
Cimarron doesn't look dangerous.
The water is only about a foot deep.
But the drovers knew better. "And
they were nervous," said Tad Malone,
the son of Troop 466's assistant
Scoutmaster Mike Malone. "That's
why, beginning at breakfast and con-
tinuing right to the edge of the river,
they lectured us on safety?'
The message: When you start to
cross, don't stop.
Then it was time to head out. The
working cowboys and the novice
cowboys mounted up and rode single
file across wildflower-covered terrain
where prairie grass grew as high as
their saddles. The party stopped on
the muddy south bank to survey the
river from a wide sandbar.
34
SCOUTING * NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2009
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 97, Number 5, November-December 2009, periodical, November 2009; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth299168/m1/36/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.