FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[5]Working things up. "Her" is often used in an impersonal and general sense out West, instead of "it." On the frontier the "Colonel" used (as does every one else who stays there for any length of time) all the frontier slang. It has always been a marvel to me to see the ease with which such men shed, like an old coat, all such frontierisms when they return to more cultured society.[6]Chaffing.[7]At the time alluded to, the Apaches were "out," and there were two military camps in Animas Valley.[8]Tracks, etc.[9]Risks.[10]"Bounced" them.[11]A swamp formed by springs in low ground.

[5]Working things up. "Her" is often used in an impersonal and general sense out West, instead of "it." On the frontier the "Colonel" used (as does every one else who stays there for any length of time) all the frontier slang. It has always been a marvel to me to see the ease with which such men shed, like an old coat, all such frontierisms when they return to more cultured society.

[6]Chaffing.

[7]At the time alluded to, the Apaches were "out," and there were two military camps in Animas Valley.

[8]Tracks, etc.

[9]Risks.

[10]"Bounced" them.

[11]A swamp formed by springs in low ground.

"How are you, Squito?—how's your health?" inquired the Colonel cheerily.

Rafaeleta silently nodded her acknowledgments of the civility manifested by the question. "Where're yer from?" she returned laconically.

"The Plyas."

"Laid over at the Sherlock boys' last night?"

"Yes." (We were engaged in unharnessing the horses by this time. Hedged round affectionately by the dogs in various positions, Squito stood watching us.) "Any Indian news?"

She shook her head, and then an after-thought evidently occurring to her, a smile lit up her face, and she shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "Some of the boys down to the Lang ranch andCloverdale have ter'ble times standing 'em off—least, that's how they talk when they get a chance at me. Piggy Farrel has killed 'bout eight,hesays. But he always buries 'em—guns and all."

"Piggy's a great and a good man," said the Colonel, smiling. "And Piggy wouldn't be dishonest enough to bury an Indian if he wasn't killed first, so if he told you that, it's all right."

"If he could kill Indians shooting off his mouth at them, he'd soon clean out all there is," remarked Squito sharply.

The Colonel cast a veiled glance at her as he passed round to put some harness in the wagon. "What's the matter, then? Has Piggy been too 'fresh'?"[12]

Her sunburnt cheeks flushed redly, and a gleam of temper flashed in her eyes. But she checked herself, and only laughed scornfully.

"Where's your father?" (Old man Murray was always so termed.)

"He's over to Alamo viejo after a steer that strayed out there; he wanted to see the country, so he went himself. Joe and Jake's out on the range somewheres.'Spect father back to supper," she observed after a pause; and after a further pause employed in a survey of our tired-out nags, she added: "Want some grain for them, don't yer?"

Don Cabeza nodded.

"Have you been feeding them grain lately?"

"Yes; they can have a full feed."

I volunteered to fetch it myself, but looking me over ungratefully, Squito lifted her eyes to mine for the first time, and said coolly: "You'd best pack those things out of the wagon into the house." And picking up a couple of empty candle-boxes, which stood on a carpenter's bench near at hand, she passed round a corner of the wall with one under each arm, and reappeared presently with the feeds of maize.

We moved our traps from the wagon into a room in the house, and lit a log fire on the wide hearth, for the sun was nearly gone, and at this time of year the nights were frosty. Major Tupper paid us a visit from the neighbouring camp with a couple of his officers.

"What news?"

"Well, the Indians had killed the marshal and another man near Wilcox. Lieut. Fountain was reported to have had a brush with them in theDragoon Mountains. Captains Crawford and Davis were on the point of starting on separate expeditions into the Sierra Madre after them. A scout from Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, had passed through the camp yesterday on his way to General Crook, at Fort Bowie, and reported that Natchez, Nané, and Mangus, with a considerable following, were located in their old stronghold—the mountain on the San Diego ranch—and that small parties of them were trading daily with the Mexicans in Casas Grandes. Etc., etc."

"They'll get you one of these days, Colonel, when you are driving around in your wagon," said the Major.

Don Cabeza laughed, as he sent the cigar-box round again. "They don't want me; old Geronimo and I, we're——" (here a little horizontal motion of the hand smoothed the matter over and disposed of it completely) "we're solid. I've fixed things with him. 'That'll be all right,' as the boys say. When the Indians are out, Major, it is like having a needle in a carpet: you may tread on it first step, and you may not strike it in ten years. If you have any business to attend to, you'd best go right along and do it. Keep your eyes skinned, of course, but don't stay home."

Our visitors left; Jake and Joe, two limber, sinewy, six-foot models of health and strength, came in, and in due course, under the direction of the Colonel (a finishedgourmet, who not only could give you points with regard to anything of gastronomic interest between the Poodle Dog and Delmonico's, but could post you almost equally well as to the best temples of culinary art that lay between Bignon's and the Café St. Pétersbourg, in Pera), we produced a sumptuous repast. With difficulty was ourchefdissuaded from delaying supper whilst he made a venison stew—a stew of any kind being a favouritetour de forceof his. Of course we all differed as to the best method of cooking what had to be prepared, and for the fun of baiting the Colonel, most of us united in deriding his decisions. But when Rafaeleta, after roundly challenging his ability, finally deserted us, and went over to his side, we had to "take water."

In such scenes as these Squito was in her happiest element. Her infectious laughter, as frivolous and light as air, ending often in the sweetest and gayest of sighs, lent a nonsensical tone to everything. She roved irresponsibly here, there, and everywhere—impeding, assisting, commanding, interfering, insisting with privileged authority—playfully executing freaks of impulse that had no motive, but were none the less exquisitely graceful, and which charmed if only because they proved that beneath her prematurely old manner the wayward spirit of childhood still lingered, and the time had not yet come in her career when every word had its billet, every gesture its design, every action its object. The movements of a child are generally graceful, awkwardness, like shyness, being only the result of false training or ill-health. Rafaeleta had had no training, and was a perfect type of all that was healthy. In moments like these, therefore, she was a beautiful study.

It was interesting to note the guard the cow-punchers kept over their tongues in her presence, and since cleansing the Augean stables had been a light task by comparison with purifying the language of a New Mexican ranch hand, the task must not be underrated.

Those were pleasant meals at the Gray Place. Rough? Naturally they were rough; but none the less they left an agreeable impression, and thisis a good test. How often do the old wines and delicacies, the vapid enumeration of social events which forms the conversation, the general luxury and jaded appetites of London dinners do this? It is possible to go through life, day after day, without realising what we enjoy or do not enjoy. There are probably people who have become so thoroughly accustomed to ask, whatisinteresting? so entirely unused to ask themselves, whattheyreally enjoy? that amusement is a lost art for them. They have stunted and coerced their inclinations until their natural and artificial appetites are indistinguishably confused, and they could no longer get a sure answer from their own hearts, did they ask themselves, what they enjoyed?

Jake and Squito are busy at the stove. Murray, the manager, a cheery little man, with avieille moustacheface, and a twinkle of quiet humour in his eyes, is drying his hands on the round towel. (Murray is an Irishman by birth, but the Irish element in America is so generally unpopular in the West, that he always laughingly denies the nationality which his unmistakable brogue betrays, and declares that he is an "I-talian.") The Colonel, Joe, andI are already seated at the long table at one end of the kitchen, together with a teamster from Separ, on his way to the camp at the Lang ranch, with a load of goods for the "gin mill" there. The Colonel is stroking his beard, and smiling in anticipation over a tale that he has just been reminded of and is going to tell.

"Yes," he agreed to some remark that had been made, and he smiled a little reflectively, "you're right. Andy Sullivan is a daisy—what Louis Timmer would call a 'Yoe dandy.' He's a great and a good man is Andy—'Not great like Cæsar stained with blood, but only great as he is good.' Did he ever tell you about his playing 'seven-up' with the old Scotchman?"

We had none of us heard the tale.

"Well, Andy found himself harnessed on to an old Scotchman one day, and they got to playing seven-up to pass the time. Andy could hardly be called 'anybody's fool' at seven-up, and the old Scotchman was no slouch either, it seemed—he had some talent into him, as they say. Anyhow, they were playing along pretty evenly; and the drinks were mounting up all the time. Pretty soon Andy beganto notice that his opponent didn't always take his word for the score, but sorted his cards over, as well as his own. He got so particular at last that the thing became rather pointed, and Andy said finally:

"'You don't seem to be very easy in your mind, sir; you're picking the cards over a good deal. You surely don't mean to suspect me of taking any advantage of you.'

"'Not for the warld, Meester Sullivan! I wouldn't be suspecting ye under any saircumstances; but,' the old Scotchman added grimly, 'the man that would be watching ye would be attending to his own bizeness.'

"'And,' said Andy confidentially, when he told me the tale on himself, 'Iwasmoighty hard up at the time—right down on the bed rock—and it is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a little.'"

"You bet yer!" cried Jake, from the store. "He'd play his hand for all there was in it, anyhow. Come to drink with him, it's just as well to keep the handle of the jug your side."

"He's another of themI-talians, ain't he?" inquired old Murray, with a wink.

"That's what he is, sure! By the way, Colonel, did you see Sam around Deming?"

"Sam?—Sam Rider? Isn't he in the valley?"

"Not much! Sam got two months' wages ahead, so he cracked his whip, and went off on a bend."

"To blow in?"[13]

Jake laughed assent.

"I seen him," chimed in the teamster.

"Where?"

"Up at Silver."

"How was he making it?" asked Squito, with her back to us.

"About making 'a stand off,' I guess. I met him going along with his head down, like he was drunk.We'dbeen having 'a time,' and my keg was pretty full, too. But I seen him all the same. 'Come into the "Ranch," and have a drink, Sam,' says I. 'A drink goes,' says he. 'How do you come on?' says I. He said as he'd been gambling, and was two hundred dollars ahead of the town. He 'got there with both feet'[14]at starting, and was eight hundred ahead once. But he played it off at monté.'Well,' says I, 'you're full now; you'd better go to bed, and not play again till you're sober.'

"'I believe I will,' he says.

"But later on Thin Pete told me that he was up at the 'Central,' gambling again. I went in and stood behind him, and looked on for a few minutes. There he was, sure enough, bucking at faro, and just a-sousing it to her red hot—betting only on the 'high card,' or 'high card, coppered.'

"'That's my kind,' says old Sam; 'you get "action" there every turn. No waiting for any durned cards to come up!' He's a high roller, by gum!—when he's got it."

"You bet your buttons!" murmured Squito proudly, "Sam'll 'stay with 'em' as long as he's got a check."[15]

"Bully for you, Squito!" cried Joe. "When it comes to gambling he's a thoroughbred; he puts it up[16]as if it was bad."

Squito laughed impulsively.

"They came near socking him in the cooler,[17]the other day," said the teamster.

"Is that so? What for?"

"Oh, I d'n' know!—he'd been singing the music to 'em. Sam's too broncho;[18]he gets all-fired mean[19]sometimes when he's full."

"There ain't a drop of mean blood in him," denied Squito flatly.

The teamster shrugged his shoulders.

"Anyhow, Doc Gilpen the Marshal jumped him.[20]I was right there when they met. 'Sam,' he says, 'you've made one or two bad breaks since you've been in town. Next time you ring, I'm coming for you—and going to get you, too.' 'What's the matter with your getting me now?' asked Sam. And they both stood with their hands on their six-shooters—so—watching one another like strange Indians. 'I don't want you now.' 'Well, that'll be all right! You can find me whenever you do; and you'll find me heeled,[21]too, you bet your sweet life!' says Sam. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc 'pulled out.'[22]Right opposite Lindauer's store it was. I thought there was going to be a shooting, sure. And it wanted powerful little to set 'em going now, and don't you forget it!"

"Doc would get away with him," said Joe.

"Would he!" ejaculated Squito hotly.

"Yes. He's got all Sam's sand,[23]and is cooler."

"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."

"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito defiantly.

"Well, there'll be hell a-popping whenever they do come together, and it——"

"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc Gilpen will get left right there."

The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company. She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and "passed" good-naturedly.

"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there to paint the town,[24]and got his tank full, and tried to ride his horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raginglion, I am! I'm a hell-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who had pocketed his chips,[25]and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked him off his horse with the butt-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be —— to —— if I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you, Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."

"That's what," assented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26]ain't around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you need it."

Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "muffins," honey, coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but newlycome from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage of the alternative which was offered to them—you can wait until the "aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have finished. The title, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher," by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.

I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But "gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this—any one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so, oflearning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these duties—will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than unwilling labour from his men.

Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman—a fine gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ——! he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far from takinga liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of it by self-assertion.

One thing may be noted here. A cattle-ranch is not, like a good mine or many another source of wealth, able to afford extravagant management. To a very large extent, the money made in cattle is money saved. Cattle-ranches will not always pay handsome dividends if called upon to support fancy managers, separate establishments for hands and master, tribes of servants, four-in-hands, trotters, good cellars and cooks, etc., etc. They may do this when cattle are "booming," but the fluctuations in the value of stock are enormous, and periods of depression recur at intervals, when even the economic ranchero finds difficulty in making both ends meet.

Where were we, though? At supper! My progress will be representable by some such eccentric tracing of involved curves and turns, as Sterne used to illustrate his advance in "Tristram Shandy."

"Which of you boys shot this antelope?" inquired the Colonel, helping himself to a steak.

"Her," answered Joe laconically, nodding towards Squito.

"Are you a good shot, Squito?" I asked.

"Well, I should rather say she was!" rejoined the Colonel, whilst the boys chuckled quietly. "She can knock the spots out of these boys at that game."

"That's what she can," assented Joe good-humouredly; "she can whip us the worst kind. She's liable to whip a'most any stranger that comes along, too," and he smiled significantly at me.

Rafaeleta, meanwhile, turned fresh steaks in the frying-pan, and paid no heed to the conversation.

"Where did you kill the antelope, Squito?" inquired Don Cabeza.

"Oh, pshaw!" she ejaculated indifferently.

"Well, where was it? We want to know, because——"

"In the big draw, back of Clanton's ciniky, then. Have another biscuit, Colonel?" And with her sleeves rolled up on her little muscular brown arms, she approached the table with the biscuit-tray in one hand, and a fork in the other.

"How far off were you from him?"

"Shan't answer any more questions," she saidcapriciously, but with hopeless decision. And seating herself at the head of the table, she appropriated Joe's muffin and Jake's teaspoon. "Joe, you can get another, and Jake, there's one in the cupboard."

Supper over, Jake "washed up," whilst Joe took a lantern and went off to milk the cows (which grazed free during the day and came in at night to their penned-up calves). The rest of us retired to the adjoining room, and gathered round the blazing logs to talk "cattle" and their prospects. On such occasions Squito would nestle down on a log by the hearth, and, taking no part in the conversation, glance keenly from speaker to speaker, or gaze dreamily into the fire, rolling herself little Mexican cigarettes, in bits of maize-leaf, from time to time. Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, she would hazard prettily, addressing either the Colonel or me: "Won't you tell us some more about them foreign lands?" When the boys, having finished their work, rejoined us, she generally slipped off silently to her own room.

FOOTNOTES:[12]Cheeky.[13]Spend his money.[14]Was very successful.[15]A counter.[16]Spends money.[17]Putting him in prison.[18]Wild.[19]Savage.[20]Took him to task.[21]Armed.[22]Left.[23]Pluck.[24]Have a spree.[25]Counters.[26]Deputy Marshal.

[12]Cheeky.

[13]Spend his money.

[14]Was very successful.

[15]A counter.

[16]Spends money.

[17]Putting him in prison.

[18]Wild.

[19]Savage.

[20]Took him to task.

[21]Armed.

[22]Left.

[23]Pluck.

[24]Have a spree.

[25]Counters.

[26]Deputy Marshal.

It was still dark when Murray rose and looked outside, letting an eager rush of frosty air into the room that brought me back from heaven knows where I had strayed in dozing. Without—

"The dawn in russet mantle clad,Peeped o'er the brow of yonder distant hill,"

"The dawn in russet mantle clad,

Peeped o'er the brow of yonder distant hill,"

—old Animas Peak, which loomed up indistinct and colourless in the distance. Everything was ghostly and still, even the breath of chill wind that crept almost noiselessly up the valley. Presently, like a great trumpet's blare, the calling of a far-off cow to its calf rang through the hollow silence. Swiftly the red ripples of sunrise broke on the gray sea of dawn. The spectral Animas issued from obscurity,clad regally in purple and a few plumes of silver mist;

"The fair star that gems the glittering coronet of morn,"

in these latitudes, shrank back and paled out of sight.

"And like a lobster boiled, the mornFrom black to red began to turn."

"And like a lobster boiled, the morn

From black to red began to turn."

"Whist! it is cold!" we gasped, as we broke the ice in the pails of water that stood on a bench under the wall, and proceeded to wash as we might.

While breakfast was being prepared, I walked out on to the cienega to look for ducks. But one shot cleared the swamp, and returning to the house with a mallard, I fell in with Squito and Joe driving the band of cow-ponies into the corral. With a broad-brimmed, leather-banded cow-boy hat on, an old pair of cow-boy, high-heeled[27]Wellington boots, a red canvas overcoat of old man Murray's, buckled in round her waist by her cartridge-belt (to which was now attached a genuine six-shooter), and her vivid little face nestled in its deep collar, the child was a quaint picture.

"Oh, pshaw!" she exclaimed, with a merry little laugh of malice, for she utterly refused to believe in a "Britisher," "you've 'done' got up, then! Joe, the man's up a'ready!" (She always called me "the man.")

"Why not?" rejoined Joe, with a smile of greeting. "You ain't the on'y one that can get up mornings."

"Why, no! do you suppose that you have a monopoly of early hours?"

"Yes, yes, yes! That's what I do, exactly. The Colonel said th' other day, when I was wanting to be 'a capitalist,' that he'd give me all the gold that I could see in the valley at sunrise. You ain't got no sort o' right to come prospecting around now. I've 'denounced' it all—it's all mine, all mine." And she threw an arm out, and grasped at the sunny skies, laughingly. "'Sides" (mischievously), "ain't you one of these dudes as the Colonel brings down sometimes from El Paso and Silver, that wants kettles o' hot water to twelve o'clock? Oh, pshaw! we ain't got to joshing you yet! You wait till the boys and me puts up a job on you."

"Shucks! you think nobody ain't got nosagass but you," ejaculated Joe, as, launching her sauciest grimace at me, with a seat so sure and finished, that it was a treat to watch her, Squito shot off at a tangent on the broncho she was riding, with only ahackamoreor headstall, to bring back a couple of ponies that were straying from the bunch.

"Well, now, you boys," said Murray one morning after breakfast, "we want to keep on picking up the calves that ain't branded. Joe, you'd best ride in back of Cunningham's. Jake, you make a bend out towards the Peak, and the Double Adobes. I'll go in towards the Baker Place and Skeleton Cañon, there's two big calves runs in there somewhere that we missed at the round up. We've got to get up that band of mares that's running with Charles Dickens, and count 'em, one day this week, too."

"That's so," chimed in Squito; "I ain't got a colt at all in the corrals to 'gentle' now."

Squito, who was perfectly fearless, and unerring with thelariat, used to amuse herself during the day with 'halter-breaking' and 'gentling' the young colts as soon as they were weaned. In doing this she required but little assistance, and displayed judgment and patience only less remarkable than her skill.

"Well, we'll get you up one," said the old man. "What are you going to do to-day, Mr. Francis?"

"I'll ride with you, Murray," I said.

Out in the horse corral there was a busy scene for the next few minutes, as each man lassoed his half-broken mount, and brought him to a standstill, snorting with fear, a quivering statue of flesh and streaming hair, and then led him to the saddling bench by the house. With a horse-hairlariaton her arm, the loop trailing from her shoulder, Squito looked on watchfully. But presently, taking compassion on my unskilful efforts, she whirled the rope twice round her head, enlarging the noose at the same time, and with the most perfect ease dropped it over the head of the "clay-bank" nag that I was endeavouring to catch. Almost simultaneously, she bent the other end of the lasso round one of the "snubbing" posts that stood about in the enclosure, and the "clay-bank" suddenly found himself captured. The Colonel, a martyr to rheumatism at the time, limped round meanwhile, chewing the end of a long cigar savagely, and swearing, not inaudibly, at the affliction which enforced his inaction.

Leaving the Gray Place, and turning our backs to the Peak, we headed for the Baker Place—some springs, about nine miles from the ranch, in the foot-hills of the San Simon range.

"Wild music makes the wind on silver strings."

A fresh breeze blew, not forcibly, but coolly and merrily, forming, one could almost fancy, the song of the world, as it grappled light-heartedly with its day's work. In the pale blue, far-off sky the sun shone brightly, and translucent cloud formations, of delicate texture, floated out like woman's hair on the sea of light, crossed and recrossed by one another as they lay in transverse currents of air at different altitudes. In the clear sunny atmosphere of the New Mexican winter, everything looked near and shone vividly; distance seemed to magnify rather than reduce in size the well-conditioned cattle that our quick-stepping ponies bore us past. And as we rode, keeping a sharp look-out for unbranded calves, that had been dropped since the fall "round up," or had then been overlooked, Murray (a one-idea man, whose heart and soul were wrapped up in cattle, and whose gods were the cattle-kings of California, "Dan Murphy,Haggin, Lux, and Miller, and them fellows,") held forth, as usual, on his favourite subject.

"There's lots of things to look to in choosing a range," he said. "There's some ranges that you couldn't hold cattle on, not if you had a man to every head of stock. They won't stay there; they'll keep on straying away. The grass don't suit 'em, or the water don't taste right, or there ain't 'nough shelter, or something—you can't always tell whatisthe matter exactly. Fact is, you want good grass, and good water, and good shelter too, if you can get 'em. And you don't want your water all in one place either, or you'll soon find your grass at one end of the ranch and your water at the other; and when cattle have to travel eight or ten miles back and forth, they're going to be in pretty poor fix[28]all the time. You want the water well distributed—a spring here, and a spring there, and a creek or a cienega somewheres else. When you've got that kind of a range, you won't have no trouble holding your stock, they'll stay right there. I could handle 20,000 head of cattle in this valley with eight men. To be sure, our stock is pretty well corralled hereby the hills, but all the same they don't want to quit. There's ways out of the valley, and they'd find 'em sure 'nough if they did. Why! last round up, over in San Simon Valley, there was only one of our steers there, and that was one that got driven off with a bunch of strays which the San Simon boys was taking back.

"It's a great thing to get a range that's isolated, and have your cattle by themselves. One thing is that you want your cattle gentle and in good condition, and when there's half-a-dozen bands mixed in together they don't get no peace; there's always some one in among 'em, 'cutting out' cattle, and running 'em round, and likely enough handling 'em, too, in a style you don't approve of. Another thing is that, when you're off by yourself, it encourages you to go to the expense of turning in good bulls, and grading up your stock, which you ain't nearly so liable to do if your cows and your neighbours' run in together.

"I'm all for grading up cattle. Look at it! Graded cattle are more valuable, ain't they? And they're gentler and easier to handle, so you work your capital at a less expense than if you runscrubs. Besides this, there's a larger percentage of increase to them than there is to scrubs. They always command a sale, and at a fair price too, even when cattle are way down in the market, like they are at present; and on a fair range they're always in condition. You can't never get these wild scrub cattle into condition anyhow; they run all the flesh off their bones. Why, some of these here black cattle from Mexico, if they see a cow-boy a mile off, will 'light out and run four miles; they graze at a lope, and water at full gallop.

"Buy your stock right in this country, if you settle here; never mind if it costs you more. You may go away down into Texas or Mexico and buy scrubs cheaper; but see here, now! one of these graded yearlings will outweigh one of them two-year-olds. Then, again, this is by far the finest breeding-ground in the States; from eighty to ninety-five per cent. of the cows here will drop calves every season; the climate suits 'em. They're lucky if they get a forty per cent. increase up in Montana. When you bring cattle from a distance, too, some of 'em is sure to die on the road; and more'll die before they get wonted to the range; and no matter how fine a range youturn 'em on to, it'll take a long time for 'em to find their condition again after a change of country. Then very likely half the cows you bring from a distance ain't been served, and many of them as has calves loses 'em on the trail. In the long run you'll always find it pay to buy cattle that you know something about, and buy 'em pretty near home, too.

"Spring's the best time to buy stock. Turn 'em on to your range when the grass is green and there's plenty of it; they get stuck on it[29]then and stop there, you don't have no trouble locating 'em. But you bring 'em in in summer, when everything is burnt up, and they'll drift off a thousand miles; and if you bring 'em in in the fall, even if the grass has recovered a bit, they haven't time to pick up after the change before winter sets in. Not that that matters so much here, where the winter don't amount to anything; but there's places where it does; and if they struck a bad season then they'd die like flies.

"You want to look at everything in a business way. You don't keep a ranch for fun. You want the cattle that's easiest handled, and easiest sold, and that matures quickest and keeps in best condition. Andyou want to get the most work you can out of your horses, and to place your men on the outside of your range so that all their riding tells, and they cover the greatest possible stretch of country. And you want to work your stock slowly. Don't you never have none of these hell-tearing rustlers from Texas on your ranch, if you get one. It don't pay to have fellows blazing off their revolvers, and stampeding the cattle, and spurring their horses on the shoulders, and always going on a lope, and driving cattle at a lope too, and lassing steers by the fore-feet on the trail, and throwing 'em head over heels, just for the satisfaction of hearing the thud they make when they fall. That kind of monkey business is played out! There ain't no object in wearing out your horses and giving 'em raw backs; and as to cattle, if you want 'em in good condition—that is, so any one will buy 'em—you never should let 'em out of a walk. You run a steer a mile or so, and lass and throw him for fun, and the flesh he loses afterwards would hardly be credited. Well, that's so much money out of your pocket, if you want to sell him. And you have a horse with a sore back for a month or two, and you can reckon that loss in money, too. Work stock slowly, and save your horseswhen you can, that's all there is to it, if you want to make money ranching."

Murray would ramble on like this by the hour, seldom repeating himself. Many were the rides we took together, but never returned from one without his having broached a fresh chapter on the habits and management of cattle. It is useless to retail these dissertations, however; such information is only used when gathered by experience—fortunately the case with all useful knowledge, or by this time the world would have grown wise and infinitely dull.

We had ridden over a good stretch of country in the direction of the Baker Place (the old man occasionally marking down an unbranded calf, to be picked up on our return), when we became aware of a few white dots amongst some live-oak, on the edge of a slope which led down into a large draw. "Antelope!" I ejaculated. Murray nodded silently. We had reined in our ponies on some rising ground, the summit of which we had scarcely attained. The game was about a mile off.

"We'd best get back, and get around to them by that ridge," said my companion, withdrawing the extinct pipe he was sucking at, and pointing to theleft. Retiring slowly, until all but our heads were concealed, we watched the band feeding for a little. It is always interesting to observe the movements, even of the commonest of wild animals, and, notwithstanding the distance which separated us from these, so clear was the air that, as soon as the eye became focussed to the range, they were easily distinguishable. After vacillating for some time, they finally all disappeared into the draw.

The direction of the wind and the nature of the country rendered it necessary to approach them from the side on which we already were—the opposite side of the draw to that on which we had first seen them. We cantered towards the nearest tributary of it, therefore, and entering it, drew as close to the game as we were able to do on horseback. Leaving the ponies then with Murray, I proceeded on foot with a little Morse carbine that I had with me. I found that the antelope had made but little progress, and were about five hundred yards off, feeding at the foot of the further slope. The intervening ground afforded no cover, and was perfectly flat; the dried course of a little stream, which found its way down from the mountains in the rainy season, ran near me, however,and, having gained this, I succeeded in crawling a hundred and fifty yards nearer to the band without having attracted notice. Then, since it was impossible to diminish the distance, I cautiously raised the 45.70, took a full three hundred yards sight, and dropped the best shot that offered. As the rest turned and fled up-hill, I risked a shot at their leader, and killed him also. They were both hit fairly behind the shoulder, and were dead before reached. Unfortunately, I can by no means lay claim to this as being my usual form with the rifle. Very far from it.

We gralloched the carcases, and having divided and packed one behind our saddles, hung the other on a live-oak to be fetched by the soldiers from the neighbouring camp. A little further on we found one of the two big calves that Murray was in search of, and taking this, with its mother, as the nucleus of our band, turned back, and drove them slowly towards the Clanton cienega, gathering,en route, all those that we had marked down as we came out. At the cienega we left them unherded, whilst we went into the Gray Place to lunch, there being no fear, since it was mid-day, of their quitting the water until we wanted them for branding.

The boys had also brought in a few calves, and immediately after lunch, we sallied forth on fresh ponies to drive our joint capture into the corral. For this task, I had been furnished with a trained "cutting" pony, reported to be one of the best in the valley, and well did he sustain his reputation. It was only necessary, after having shown him a cow or a calf getting away from the herd, to give him his head, and at full speed he started for it immediately. Needless to guide him. Wholly uninfluenced, he would check and counter-check in mid-career each break of the truant's with stops and turns so sudden, that once a pocket-book and some letters were jolted clean out of an outside breast-pocket in my coat, and fell a yard or two clear of where my mount had stopped. The cattle were soon penned, and, dismounting, we entered the corral on foot.

About a baker's dozen of cows and calves were collected. One of the former was what is termed a "hooking" cow, and to escape her repeated charges tested all our agility, and afforded considerable amusement to Don Cabeza, who sat upon the top rail of the corral, smoking, and exercising his wit at our expense.

The brands were heated in a small wood fire, and a calf being lassoed and thrown, if necessary it was also hog-tied, or had fore and hind legs crossed and bound with a few turns of the lariat. The tip of the right ear was then squared off, the left ear split, the calf was dewlapped (or had the outer edge of the loose skin of the throat cut, so as to leave pendent a small rope of flesh, an inch in diameter, and four or five inches long), and finally the diamond A was branded on its hip. To cleanse the iron before making a fresh application of it, it was dipped in a pan of grease.

The foregoing marks may appear cruel, and, some of them, superfluous. In reality, however, they seemed to cause but little pain. And in a country where cattle run free, and the brands are endless in variety, it is of the utmost importance to avoid the possibility of mistakes, or of any criminal alteration of the marks by which herds are distinguished.À proposof marks, the Colonel, of course, had a happy instance to quote.

The boys had just released the last calf, and we were about to turn the lot out, when something was said which caused the Don to refer to the tale,and we gathered round where he was perched on the rails, the blue sky behind him, his hat thrust back, his beard grasped affectionately in one hand, the stump of a cigar between the fingers of the other, and a smile of delicious knowingness and good humour lighting up his handsome phiz.

"Ear-marks! Did I never tell you that? No? Well, away back in my old State, at a little place on the Shenang River, there was an old fellow called Joshua Welch. His neighbours used to say that he stole their hogs. Maybe he did; maybe he didn't. Joshua is dead long ago, anyhow—for all we know he may be squinting through his trumpet at us, right now—and I shouldn't like to say of any gentleman cherub that once on a time he stole hogs. Most of the folks kept hogs where he lived, and some used one mark, some another; some squared the right ear, some the left. Old Joshua always seemed to be in doubt about his mark; he used all kinds, and claimed 'most anything that came his way. So one day they went to him. There was hell a-popping! One fellow said he had roped in a sow with the left ear off, belonging tohim; and another fellow said that he had got a youngboar with the right ear off, belonging tohim. So they went to him—madder than hell they were, too—and the spokesman said:

"'Now, Mr. Welch, we just want to know, once for all, what your ear-mark is? Which eardoyou crop, anyhow?'

"'Ear-mark?' said old Joshua; 'ear-mark? Why, that's clear enough. Ear off next the river—that's my mark.'"

In the way of altering brands there is comparatively but little mischief done in these days. Stock associations, and the like, have almost put an end to such trespasses. The ranchero who does not get his own calves now, or who loses his cattle, has only himself, and a carelessness or ignorance that absolutely offers a premium for theft, to thank for it. An old cow-puncher that I met in Washington Territory, regretted this new order of things very feelingly to me once, over our second cocktail.

"These ain't no sort of times to go to raising cattle down Texas way," he said indignantly. "No, sir; don't you try it—not now they've got all their associations, and conventions, and mutual-protection schemes, and all that monkey business. Why, I'veknown the time when, if you started me in business with one steer, and the proper kind of branding-iron, I could have raised quite a nice bunch of cattle in a twelvemonth. Half the 'draw'[30]was worth something those times! Nowadays you don't dare to clap a brand on a mavorick[31]even; and if they catch youalteringa brand—hell! that's a penitentiary job. The cattle business ain't what it was; and any one who expects to make 'a raise' in it now, in any sort o' reasonable time, is going to get pretty badly left, and don't you forget it. I know what I'm talking about! Why, Lord! I tailed cattle across the plains from Missouri to California away back—way back! I was in California in '47—when it was a cattle country, mind; when you could sit on your horse, and tie the wild oats together across the pommel of your saddle. I was in 'Frisco in '49 and spring of '50. Yes, sir" (with a semi-defiant air), "that's what I was. I can remember, just like yesterday, when the water used to come up on Montgomery Street. Those times, when people had money they spent it; they let it roll! There wasn't none of thissmall-minded scraping, and shaving, and adding up, and keeping tally. Them as'd got it paid, and them as hadn't didn't, and that's all there was to it; and if anybody said anything ugly about it, you just blowed the top of his head off, and set up the drinks, and there was an end of him. As to these here Californians that's come out since then, they're a tin-horn lot compared—half Jew, half Chinaman; on'y fit to take their pleasure in a one-horse hearse. Why, I remember——Are you acquainted in 'Frisco, sir?" he asked, pausing in mid-career prudently.

As I had heard this kind of thing numberless times before, I intimated that I was so, and also that I knew several old-timers.

"Ah! fine city! fine city!—compared, that is," he said approvingly. "But as to this here cattle business, that's played out.I've quit."

Evidently, in his own mind, this set a seal on the decadence of cattle-ranching.

"What are you doing now?" I inquired.

"Well—well—I'm just prospecting around—looking at the country. I've got two or three schemes on hand; there's big money—big money in 'em—millions, if they're worked properly! But it'll take a littlecapital to start 'em. Now, if you want a really good investment, you're in luck. Me and my partner's got a mine, that——," etc., etc.

Many scores of these philanthropists, who have spent their lives in looking for men to enrich, whilst anxious only "to make a small wad" for themselves, have I encountered! Many a time have I let "the boss mine," or "the boss ranch," slip through my fingers! Such men always take it for granted that an Englishman is a "sucker." It is as well to foster the belief, for the amusement of hearing them ingenuously unfold their magnificent schemes. Besides which, as a matter of policy it is unwise to endeavour to seem too smart when in quest of information, for a fool is allowed to see more in an hour than one who is credited with ordinary sense will discover in twelve months.

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