The men break camp early at Indian Lake and make their way east through the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

Matt Farrow Jr. drives carefully over some jagged stretches of road, the white horse trailer leaving a splashy wake through some monstrous mud puddles. Matt Farrow Sr. follows behind in a heavy pickup loaded with two all-terrain vehicles.

The group eventually arrives at its destination and the elder Farrow drives over a cattle guard into a wooded pasture area. Some unseen cattle moo from a nearby resting place while the weekend cowboys tie on their leather chaps and gear up their horses.

“Get over here!” someone jokingly taunts back to the animals. Another worker breaks into a discussion about the benefits of horses over women.

It’s the kind of lighthearted dialogue characteristic to a tight-knit group of comrades, banter intended to ease the mind before a long August Saturday’s work.

This weekend’s task? Herd and rotate about 150 head of cattle from one expansive grazing pasture into an adjacent one.

“I basically don’t have any days off,” Farrow Jr. said. “Get off work just to go to work.”

Whereas Farrow Jr. spends his weekday hours as the range and agricultural technician for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, much of his remaining time goes toward his responsibilities as chairman of Indian Country Livestock, a grazing cooperative open to tribal members.

The co-op formed in 2007 under the tribes’ limited liability code with the commercial goal of raising and selling Indian-owned cattle, and for using grazing as a land-management tool. Through agreements with private landowners and public land managers, co-op members graze their animals on various acreages of rangeland, transporting them throughout the seasons.

“The more land we have to put them on, the less we have to feed them,” Farrow Jr. said. “We’re constantly looking for big chunks of land.”

In addition to land management, the co-op’s activities exercise specific grazing rights set forth in the tribes’ 1855 treaty. In June, for example, the CTUIR and U.S. Forest Service reached a landmark deal, allowing the tribes to graze cattle within a 26,000-acre spread in the Wallowa-Whitman forest.

The tribes gave first privileges to Indian Country Livestock, and over the Fourth of July weekend the co-op members and volunteers hauled their 150 cattle to the new location. They will remain in that forest through the end of September.

“This first year’s going to be a learning year,” Farrow Jr. said, meaning both for the handlers and the cattle.

As four members of the Saturday crew set off on horseback, Farrow Jr. got behind the wheel of the pickup and scouted ahead down a narrow forest service road, scanning to see where the herd had scattered over the previous month and a half – not always easy through the thick evergreen timber.

“They’ve been through here though. Last time I?was out here this grass was a lot taller,” Farrow Jr. said. “It looks to me like they’re pretty well distributed through this boundary.”

For the time being, Indian Country Livestock includes 14 share-holding members and a core group of volunteers. American Indians interested in joining the cooperative have the option of either buying in at $1,500 per share, through in-kind labor, or through a combination of the two.

For the in-kind labor option, members of the co-op first assess the individual’s knowledge and ability, then assign them to one of three categories: an entry-level “dude,” a mid-level “hand,” or foreman.

And there’s never a shortage of work, whether it’s riding out to check on the herd or repairing fence. In the new national forest territory alone, Farrow Jr. estimated there could be close to 60 miles of fence to maintain, crucial to keeping cattle in the correct pastures and clear of protected riparian zones.

For the handful of dedicated workers, the weekend excursions can translate into some memorable adventures. Every month or so, group members say there might be two or three black bear sightings, not to mention elk, deer and wild turkey.

Members recalled watching one impressive spectacle. Fellow worker and former rodeo cowboy Dave Kasparek held onto a bucking horse when – while herding – his dog bit the animal from behind and wouldn’t let go.

“He grabbed his tail and hung on,” the 67-year-old Kasparek said.

Although not Native American and therefore not a member, Kasparek works for the co-op as an expert cattleman, having long worked on ranches across the country. While the first two years he took much of the lead in passing on his knowledge in handling cattle, he credited his fellow workers for learning the trade.

“The crew I’m with right now, I?ain’t never worked with a better crew,” Kasparek said. “They really took things over.”

Being a cowboy in a modern context can be all about taking advantage of newer technologies, whether it’s the business aspect of selling cattle on the Internet or in the actual herding process.

“We’ll get on the cell phones and talk to each other from ATVs to a horse,” said Jack Mills, whose children are shareholders. “Kind of a mix of the old and new.”

But while the herd is slowly growing after two successful calving seasons, the members of Indian Country Livestock still have at least four more years to just pay off their initial loan.

Both Farrow men cited several ongoing challenges, such as fuel costs, feed costs and the constant threat of equipment failure – blown tires and busted fences – as well as personal injury while riding horses and ATVs in remote settings.

“The biggest challenge I?see right now is proving we can do it,” he said, noting a contingent of naysayers in the reservation community who expect the venture to fail. “If I?have anything to say about it, I’m gonna make it work.”

For Mills and Farrow Jr., Indian Country Livestock is a family matter. Already, both men say they involve their children as much as possible, taking them up to the hills and exposing them to the cattle-raising environment. Mills said he has his daughters riding horses and his 8-year-old steering dad’s pickup during some of the safer tasks.

“The kids make it a lot of fun,” Mills said. “I want my kids to know that cattle doesn’t come from McDonalds. It comes from the mountains.”

For Farrow Jr., he said the current long hours are all about the payoff down the road, and making the operation viable for future generations.

“I’d like to have this be something I?can do with my kids,” he said. “I’d have to say I?do it because I?want to make it as easy as possible for them.”