Arizona Nights

RRAL B

had been a fire to replenish, that would have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing and the seas rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft for indications, to feel whether the anchor cable was holding; if the pack-horses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the sno

black shadow lying before distant silvery mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvas

nsciousness again. A clear, licking little fire danced in the

from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews were told to brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoon before. That took up abo

ding a fire next the fence. We pushed open the wide gate and entered. The three ropers sat their horses, idly swinging the loops of their ropes back and forth. Three others brought wood and arranged it craftily in such manner as to get best draught for heatin,-a good branding fire is most d

n among the cattle. The rest of the men arose and stretched their legs and advanced. The Cattlem

om slipping off. Immediately, and without waiting to ascertain the result of the manoeuvre, the horse turned and began methodically, without undue haste, to walk toward the branding fire. Homer wrapped the rope twice or thrice about the horn, and sat over in one stirrup to avoid the tightened line and to preserve the balance.

ort of hammer-lock; the other seized one hind foot, pressed his boot heel against the other hind leg close to the body, and sat down behind the animal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When onc

lled one of th

yelled t

mell of scorching hair arose. Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a brief moment it

the other. The pieces he thrust into his pocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus check the Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calve

as well to adopt it in preference. But in the circumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and hundreds of owners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a New England movement looking toward small bras

hat cattle are not so sensitive as the higher nervous organisms. A calf usually bellows when the iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes to feeding or to looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even take the trouble to

cal bucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding in the air. Mr. Frost's bull-calf alone in pictorial history shows the attitudes. And then, of course, there was the gorgeous contrast between all this frantic and uncomprehending excitement and the absolute matter-of-fact imperturbability of horse and rider. Once at the fire, one of the men

p short enough at the end of the rope; but once or twice he succeeded in running around a group absorbed in branding. You can imagine what happened next. The rope, attached at one end to a conscientious and immovable horse and at the other to a reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut and destroying way about m

asp the animal's tail and throw it by a quick jerk across the p

matter of course. Rarely did the cast fail. Men ran to and fro busy and intent. Sometimes three or four calves were on the ground at once. Cries arose

orning the bull-doggers be

nounced. "Catch 'em by the hind

ictim caught by the neck. The bull-doggers flatly refused to have anything to do with it. An obvious way out wou

slowly dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! W

o at it alone. If luck attended his f

ke to have me tote it to you, or do you reckon you

then all work ceased while the un

for a minute or so before their eyes fell on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over t

nd seventy-six

total amounted to but an hundred and seventy-five. Everybody went to searching for th

said he, "but thought it must

but did not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture periodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balance

ver an hour while the cows wandered about looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf

ost foolish calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water a

be well to note that the fragments of the ears