The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
less hungry or more particular than the tired cowpuncher. A pound or so of beef, with some tinned vegetables, taken with a quart or so of coffee, and the cowpuncher is ready to hunt his blankets and make ready for another day. He does not work on the eight hours a day schedule, but works during the hours when it is light enough to see. The end of the day may find him some miles from where the cooks' fires are gleaming, and the swift chill of the night of the plains may have fallen before his jogging pony, which trots now with head and ears down, brings him up to the camp which for him, as much as any place on earth, is home.
Such is something of the routine of the round-up, and one day, barring the weather conditions, is like another throughout the long and burning summer, one round-up following another closely all through the season. The work is a trifle monotonous to the cowboy, perhaps, in spite of its exciting features, and is to-day more monotonous than it was in the past, before the good old days had left the plains forever. In those times the country was wilder, and there was more of novelty and interest in the operations of the range. To-day the great plains are but a vast pasture ground for the cattle belonging to the community of cowmen, and the highly differentiated system of the round-up progresses as a purely business operation, whose essential object is the establishment of the individual rights of each member of that community. The methods of the round-up seem of necessity rude and inaccurate, but really they are singularly efficient and precise. The skilled labour of the cowpuncher gives to each man that which belongs to him, and nothing more.
It is a curious review, that which passes under the eyes of the tally men and branders during the calf harvesting. Sometimes a calf comes up with a cow whose hide is a network of confused and conflicting brands, so that it is impossible to tell justly whose property she is. In such a case the calf is not branded at all to any owner, but is thrown into the association credit, where it belongs equally to all, and where its value will be equally divided. Sometimes in the hurry of the work a calf is branded with the wrong iron, and is thus given the sign of a man to whom it does not belong. This would seem to be a puzzling proposition to the cowpuncher, for the brand is something which, to use the cowpuncher's phrase, does not "come out in the washin'." Yet the remedy is very simple. Another calf is "traded back" for the calf wrongly branded, the proper brand of the former calf being placed upon the "traded" calf. Of course, this leaves two mismatched calves on the range, whose brands do not tally with those of their mothers, but within the year time will have equalized the error, for the calves will have left their mothers, and the one will probably be worth about as much as the other.
Mingled with such questions as these during the branding operations are always the complex ones of strays and Mavericks. Sometimes a stray cow is found during the round-up bearing the brand of a man foreign to that round-up district, or one not represented in the round-up. The increase of this animal is branded with the brand of its owner, who has been no party to the transaction at all, but who has been safe under the system of the round-up. In the case of Mavericks found during the round-up, a like intelligent and just method obtains. Roughly speaking, an animal must be a yearling to be a Maverick, and on some ranges this rule is laid down, though really a Maverick becomes such at the time when it ceases to follow the cow and begins to shift for itself. If it is missed in the first round-up of its life, it falls under the rules or laws governing the handling of Mavericks, such rules offering considerable local variations. On some ranges of "Wyoming, for instance, the cowmen have agreed lines establishing the borders of their respective ranges, and a cowman may brand for his own a calf running on his range and not following any cow. This right is merely one of comity among the local ranchers, and one which it is not expected will be abused. Indeed, the comity goes still further, showing yet more clearly the interdependence and mutual confidence of the cowmen. If after the roundup a rancher finds a neighbour's calf unbranded, but following the cow upon his own range, he brands the calf with the owner's proper brand, and not with his own. This is simply a matter of individual honesty. The cowman knows that his neighbour will do as much for him. Each ranch keeps its own separate tally-book in this way, and these are exchanged at the end of the season, so that each man gets what belongs to him, no matter where it may have wandered, and no matter whether he ever sees it again or not. It has been elsewhere mentioned that on some parts of the range all the Mavericks are sold at auction before the beginning of the round-up (always to some resident cowman who is known to be responsible). In this case, when a Maverick is found in the round-up it is dragged to the fire — perhaps by two ropes, for it is big and lusty — and has put upon it the "vent brand" of the association, thus securing an abstract of title which it is to carry with it through life, and which will hold good in any cattle market of the land.
It may readily be seen how honest and how expert must be the men who carry out so intricate a system. It should be borne in mind that brands do not show so distinctly upon hide as they do upon paper, and, of course, it must be remembered that a range cow may carry more than one brand, and perhaps a "vent brand" or so, if she has changed ownership before. Here again there may be exceptions arising out of local conditions. For instance, if a herd of cattle is brought from a far Southern range to one in the North, where that brand is not met and is not recorded, it is not always the case that the owner will have these animals counterbranded; for it is known that no confusion will arise if they are left as they are, and, of course, the fewer brands an animal carries the easier it is to tell whose it is. It is justice, and justice by the shortest and most practical route, which is the desire of the cowman, whether that imply the branding of a Maverick or the hanging of a cattle thief.
After the calf round-up comes the beef round-up, and this, too, may be called the cowman's harvest, or his final harvest. The beef round-up may begin in July or August, and perhaps it may be conducted by the joint efforts of two districts instead of one. The joint outfit acts under much the same system of gathering up the cattle as has been described for the calf round-up. All the cattle of the range are gathered in great herds, and the latter are handled as during the calf round-up, though the operation is somewhat simpler. Only the mature or fatted animals are cut out from the herd, the rest being left to scatter as they like. The separated number goes under the name of the "beef cut," and this "cut" is held apart and driven on ahead from place to place as the round-up progresses, the beef herd thus growing from day to day until all the range has been worked. The herd is then driven in by easy stages to the shipping point on the railroad, where it is perhaps held until the arrival of the herd from the adjoining district, so that the shippers may be reasonably sure they have in all the beef fit for shipment from their ranges. Then the long train loads of cattle go on to the great markets, and the work of the ranchman proper is done for the season. Perhaps in the shipment of beef there may be a few animals picked up on the range during the beef drive which belong to some owner or owners not represented in the outfits. Such animals, if fit for shipment as beef, are driven along with the main herd and shipped and sold without the owners' knowledge, the money being returned to the owners in due time through the inspectors at the markets. Obviously this is better than allowing these animals to run wild and unutilized as strays upon the range, of no profit to the owners or any one else. The common sense and the fairness of the cowman's system prevail on the beef round-up as in the harvesting of the calves. So perfect is this great interdependent system of the round-up on the main cattle ranges of to-day that the ranchmen trust to it almost entirely for the determining and the handling of their yearly product. Range riding is now nearly done away with in some of the more populous districts, the cattle ranging in common over the country as they like, with no efforts made to confine them to any given range. All these things are modified by local conditions, and the whole system of ranching cattle is becoming modified by the advance of time. To-day the rancher uses more and more feed about his ranch. He raises hay for his stock, a bit of grain for his horses in winter time, or perhaps he buys hay or grain of the "grangers" who are moving in about him. Speaking in the original and primitive sense, this is not range work at all. The cowman proper depended solely upon the standing grass for his cattle food, upon the saddle for the assembling of his wealth, upon his own iron for the marking of it.
If it be now obvious what is the intention of the cowman in the round-up and what the method by which he obtains his purposes, we shall none the less fail of a fair review of this business system if we lose sight of the chief actor in all these operations, the cowpuncher himself. His is the tireless form