THE Z T RANCH
Since school was in session only about nine months each year it was possible to work the other three and that is just what I did. I spent a number of summers working for Orville Hazelwood on the ZT Ranch. Orville came from a large family and I attended school with two of his sisters and one of his brothers. I was well acquainted with his family. Orville did not have a good reputation among other ranchers. After coming to Young from Texas in 1911, Orville and his two brothers homesteaded the PB Ranch on lower Cherry Creek and proceeded to build up a herd of cattle. They did this by finding unbranded animals which were a year or more old and then putting their brand on them. Technically, any cow a year or more old and which was not branded was a "maverick" and was fair game for anyone who wanted to brand her. Reasonably, if you owned only twenty or thirty cows and you branded fifty "mavericks" you were stretching the custom by quite a margin and you were looked on with suspicion by neighboring ranchers. This is what happened to the Hazelwood brothers. They built up a large herd in a very short time by riding with a "long rope and a hot iron."
One time a State Cattle Inspector asked me to keep an eye on Orville Hazelwood and let the inspector know if he did anything that was not on the up and up. I was not about to spy on a man who had given me a job. Furthermore, Orville's actions were open and above board in every way and he was a fine "Boss."
I have always been puzzled by the fact that Orville liked me. He was a big rugged two hundred pounder and was a tough guy to stay with when chasing wild cattle in rough country and he could throw a rope on an animal in impossible spots but could not rope anything in a rodeo roping contest.
Orville bought a horse from an itinerant horse trader one summer and the horse turned out to be an outlaw. On one occasion he was trying to break the horse and was riding him in a large corral. The horse bucked into the fence and fell on top of Orville who then grabbed the horse's head to hold him down I ran in and managed to get Orville's legs out from under the horse. It was then that I discovered that Orville had a dislocated shoulder which I managed to get back in place and with his arm in a sling we continued to work with the horse. He was a tough guy.
Orville had a young sister who was about my age and one summer he left me alone at the ranch and went to see his sister in Phoenix because she was ill. Unfortunately she died and when Orville came back he insisted that I conduct her funeral service at the local church. He had never had anything to do with a church but he knew the local preacher and felt that he was not acceptable. I went to my Dad and we found some appropriate verses of scripture to use. I asked my good friend, Ernest Cline, to join me in a duet and with those and a few personal remarks, that was the ceremony. Orville was most appreciative.
The ZT range ran down Cherry Creek a good day's ride from Pleasant Valley and the PB place was in a wild canyon west of
