The Religious Life of the Zu?i Child

dustry upon which many of the greatest fortunes of the State were founded, and from it sprang the great cattle-ranch industry that between the years 1866 and 1885 converted

its rise and progress. There can be no question that the ranch industry hastened the occupation and settlement of the Plains by at least thirty years. Farming in those wilds was then an impossibility. Remote from railways, unmapped, and untrod by white men, it was under the sway of hostile Indians, before whose attacks isolated farmi

ast region. Pistol and knife were the treasured toys of their childhood; they were inured to danger and to hardship; they were expert horsem

the comparatively few survivors of t

ary for the effective use of pistol and lariat; the running iron anybody could wield; therefore, while a necessary feature of equipment, the iron was a secondary affair. The pistol was useful in settling

dopted a distinctive "mark and brand." The owner's mark and brand were put upon the young before they left their mothers, and upon grown cattle when purchase

," the under half of the tip of the ear cut away; another, the "over-half crop," the reverse of the last; another, the "under-bit," a round nick cut in the lower edge of the ear; another, the "over-bit," the reverse of the last; another, the "under-slope," the under half of the ear removed by cutting diagonally upward; another, the "over-slope," the reverse of the last; anot

seared. Properly done, hair never again grows on the seared surface and the animal is "branded for life." A small

lex combination of lines and circles the whim of the owner may conceive. In this country the brand was usually a combination of letters or numerals, though sometimes shapes and forms are represented. Branding and mar

r, unmarked and unbranded, wild as the native game, to which no man could establish title. This situation afforded an opportunity which the hard-riding and desperate men who found themselves stranded on this far frontier after the wr

ing mild even in winter, seldom more than two blankets to the man were carried for bedding. The cooking paraphernalia were equally simple, at the most consisting of a coffee pot, a frying-pan, a stew kettle, and a Dutch oven. Each man carried a tin cup tied to his saddle. Plates, knives, and forks were considered unnecessary luxuries, as every man wore a bowie knife at his belt, and was dexterous in using his slice of bread as

, on the broad savannas of the Lower Guadalupe and the Brazos, in the plains and mesquite thickets of the Nueces and the Frio. And through these wi

party of naked bucks on naked horses, the lightest and most dexterous cavalry in the world, would slip softly near some isolated ranch or lonely camp by night. The cleverest and cunningest would dismount and steal swiftly in upon their quarry. Slender, sinewy, bronze figures creeping and crouching like panthers, crafty as foxes, fierce and merciless as maddened bulls, their presence was rarely known until the blow fell. Sometimes they were content to steal the s

ireless on a trail and utterly reckless in attack. It was not often the Indians got the best of them, and then only by ambush, or overwhelming numbers.

ch led to bitter feuds not settled till one side or the other was killed off or run out of the country. Battles royal were fought more

ore effective. Thus the rifle and pistol were almost invariably the cow-hunters' court of first and last resort for disputes of every nature. Except in rare instances where there happened to b

While, as a rule, the procedure of these courts conformed to the statutes and was formal enough, rather startling infor

e most versatile man of any older community. Here he kept a general store, operated blacksmith and wheelwright shops, served as post-master, ran a hotel, and sat as justice of the peace. Indeed, he got so much in the habit of self-reliance in all emergencies, that in

distinction as a court house, when at long intervals the Llano County court met. The accommodations, however, were incon

was felt that he had given his victim no chance for his life, else he probably would not have been brought to trial a

wth in population when the District Attorney succeeded in raking together enough men for a jury. At noon of the second day of the trial the evidence was all in, arguments of coun

eaned from its temporary dignity as a hall of justice, to the humble rank of a dining-room as soon as

her bank of the Llano, and distant two or three hundred yards from the court house. Here, therefore, the jury were conducted, the bailiffs retired to some distance, and discussion of a verdict was begun. In spite of the weight of evidence again

distant court house, and the two bailiffs guarding the "jury room," overcome by habit and the heat, were stretched at full length on the ground, snoring in concert. This situation made the o

sort o' lonesome like, I thought mebbe so you fellers 'd be tired o' talkin

alkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an' dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's been a-floppin' till thar ain't na

jug from the brush near by. "'Pears like, 'nless I

but, passed and repassed around the "jury room," it wa

luck when he had t' kill this yer Arkinsaw feller. But then, boys, Arkinsawyers don't count fer much nohow, do they? Pow'ful onery, no account lot, sca'cely fit to practise shootin' at. We fellers ain't a-goin' to lay that up agin Jim, air we? We ain't a-goin' to help this yer jack-leg prosecutin' attorney send ol' Ji

lf the jury, but there were several who, while their sympathies were wit

for us fellers to stan' together, shua'. I'll tell you what le's do; le's all slip off inter th' brush, cotch our hosses an' pull our freight fer h

objections. In a moment t

of hoofs over the rocky hills behind them, were doubly shoc

tter, running toward the house, met the judge and counsel who had been roused by the firing, and yelled out: "Jedge, t

thanks to Shang's diplomacy and eloquence. And, by the way, in the dark days that came to ranchmen in 1885, Jim, risen to be a well-known and powerful banker in --- City, furnished the ready money necessary to

ccumulating cattle. From Palo Pinto to San Diego great outfits w

on the prostrate beast, they quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hogtie" hitch so that he could not rise, a fire was built, the short saddle iron heated, and the beast bran

by one's horse, a breaking cinch, a failure to maintain full tension on the lariat, slowness in dismounting to tie an animal or in mounting after it was untied-any one of these things happening meant death, unless the cow-hunter could save himself with a quick and accurate shot. Indeed the boys so loved this work and were so proud of their skill, that when an unusually vicious old "mossback" was enco

s a period so happy that memory plays me a shabby trick to recall its incidents and fire me with longing

d, the camp is still, and each, half hypnotized by gazing into the weirdly shifting lights of the dying embers, is wrapped in introspection. Then, rousing, you lie down, your canopy the dark blue vault of the heavens, your mattress the soft, curling buffalo grass. After a night of deep refreshing sleep you spring at dawn with every faculty renewed and tense. Breakfast eaten, you catch a favorite roping-horse, square and heavy of shoulder and quarter, short of back, with wide nervous nostrils, flashing eyes, ears pointing to the slightest sound, pasterns supple and strong as steel, and of a nerve and temper always reminding you that you are his master only by sufferance. Now begins the day's hunt. Riding softly through cedar brake or mesquite thicket, slipping quickly from one live oak to another, you come upon your quarry, some great tawny ye

Missouri River. So the Texans gathered their cattle into herds of two thousand to three thousand head each, and struck north across the trackless Plains. Indeed this movement reached such proportions that, excepting in a few narrow mining belts, there is scarcely one of the greater cities an

394,784 1870 350,000 1881 250,000 1871 600,000 1882 250,000 1872 350,000 1883 265,000 1873 4

e good lands farmed and the poor lands exhausted, the ranges have become narrower every year; and every year the cost of getting fat grass steers has been eating deeper and deeper into

reed, and went on tame feed, the better. A corn shock is now a more profitable close herder than any cowpuncher who ever wore spurs. This is a sad thing for an old rangeman to contemplate, but it is nevertheless the simple trut

survived his usefulness. His work is practically done, and few realize

But for the venturesome rangeman and his rifle, millions of acres, from the Gulf in the South to Bow River in the far Canadian Northwest, now constituting the peaceful, prosperous homes of hu

was accomplished, few know except those who had a hand in it, and they as a rule, w