way.

Most of the time all we had to do was to sit our horses and watch these
things, to enjoy the warm bath of the Arizona sun, and to converse with
our next neighbours. Once in a while some enterprising cow, observing
the opening between the men, would start to walk out. Others would
fall in behind her until the movement would become general. Then one
of us would swing his leg off the pommel and jog his pony over to head
them off. They would return peacefully enough.

But one black muley cow, with a calf as black and muley as herself, was
more persistent. Time after time, with infinite patience, she tried it
again the moment my back was turned. I tried driving her far into the
herd. No use; she always returned. Quirtings and stones had no effect
on her mild and steady persistence.

"She's a San Simon cow," drawled my neighbour. "Everybody knows her.
She's at every round-up, just naturally raisin' hell."

When the last man had returned from chuck, Homer made the dispositions
for the cut. There were present probably thirty men from the home
ranches round about, and twenty representing owners at a distance, here
to pick up the strays inevitable to the season's drift. The round-up
captain appointed two men to hold the cow-and-calf cut, and two more to
hold the steer cut. Several of us rode into the herd, while the
remainder retained their positions as sentinels to hold the main body
of cattle in shape.

Little G and I rode slowly among the cattle looking everywhere. The
animals moved sluggishly aside to give us passage, and closed in as
sluggishly behind us, so that we were always closely hemmed in wherever
we went. Over the shifting sleek backs, through the eddying clouds of
dust, I could make out the figures of my companions moving slowly,
apparently aimlessly, here and there.

Our task for the moment was to search out the unbranded J H calves.
Since in ranks so closely crowded it would be physically impossible
actually to see an animal's branded flank, we depended entirely on the
ear-marks.

Did you ever notice how any animal, tame or wild, always points his
ears inquiringly in the direction of whatever interests or alarms him?
Those ears are for the moment his most prominent feature. So when a
brand is quite indistinguishable because, as now, of press of numbers,
or, as in winter, from extreme length of hair, the cropped ears tell
plainly the tale of ownership. As every animal is so marked when