Page:Boys' Life Mar 1, 1911.djvu/25

Rh never dared to attack except when the wild horses came in the evening to water and had to thread their way through the bush. Then Mr. Horse would find a great cat animal leaping upon his back, trying to reach round to bite his throat open. Mr. Horse had to get rid of that wild beast, so he made great cat leaps into the air, coming down stiff on all fours, to shake the enemy from its hold. If that failed he ran against the trees, rolled on his back, bit, kicked, struck, fought like a demon. And that's exactly the way he treats the wild cowboy of today. He fights with all his splendid spirit.

I have known horses to die of a broken heart because they were conquered, and many a cowboy gets his insides shaken to pieces, so that he has to leave the range and take to some gentler trade.



Once thoroughly mastered, these range ponies become quite gentle, and grow to love their masters. At the same time, this rough way of breaking is bad both for man and horse, and if the cattlemen could only afford it they would rear their colts by hand.

So much for the cowboy's riding powers. Then we come to another section of the work—the branding of cattle.

How shall a man know his own cattle? The land is public, there are no fences, the cattle are not herded, but all mixed up and living as the buffalo lived on the buffalo's grass. The owner must have a mark upon his cow, his own mark, burned with a red-hot iron upon the hide. He brands his cow W (flying W) or—(two-bar). Next spring the cow has a calf running beside her, so he brands the calf—, amid howls and screams, contortions, and smoke from the calf. In three years that—calf is a beef steer, to be sorted out from the herd, driven to a railway, shipped to Chicago, potted, exported to China, and eaten by an up-country mandarin, who thus finds out exactly how those foreign devils live.

Now consider the ways of the owner The—cattle have been bought by an English syndicate, represented by "Our Mr. Jones," the resident manager. Our Mr. Jones is a member of the Stock Association, which has placed the—brand on record, that all men may know his syndicate's cattle at sight. Any calf running with a—cow belongs to the two-bar outfit, and will in due course be roped and branded by the two-bar "round-up." If the round-up works too late in the season, and the calf be weaned and loose-footed, that calf is the property of any man who, finding it, burns his brand. It is a "maverick."

Our Mr. Jones hastens in the early spring to get among his cattle before the calves shall wean. He engages eight riders at, say, $35 a month, under a foreman; he provides a traveling wagon or a train of pack animals, a cook, and a wrangler to look after the pony herd. That is the outfit of the two-bar, working in conjunction with the "flying W" and "bar zee" outfits, and attended by a rep. (representative) on behalf of a stock association in the next State, whose cows may have strayed over the boundary. All these riders, under the captain of the round-up, scatter out each day over a given district and collect all the cattle into a bunch. Then the two-bar cuts out its—cattle, and brands their calves and turns them loose for the summer. The other outfits brand their calves, and the rep. takes charge of the strays from the neighbor State, to herd them back over the border. That is the spring round-up.

In the autumn after the haying there is another round-up, precisely like the first, which searches the whole district, collects the cattle, cuts out the saleable animals, turns the rest