d victim.

In this work horses were often fatally gored and not a few men lost
their lives. Notwithstanding the fact that it was such a downright
desperate task, the men became so expert that they did not even
hesitate to tackle, alone and single-handed, great bulls of twice the
weight of their small ponies; they roped, held, threw, and branded
them. The least accident or mistake, a slip of the foot, a stumble 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 encountered,
each strove to be the first catch and master him. And God knows they
should have loved it, as must any man with real red blood coursing
through his veins, for it was not work; I libel it to call it work; it
was rather sport, and the most glorious sport in the world. Riding to
hounds over the stiffest country, or hunting grizzly in juniper
thickets, is tame beside cow-hunting in the old days.

The happiest period of my life was my first five years on the range in
the early seventies. Indeed it was a period so happy that memory plays
me a shabby trick to recall its incidents and fire me with longings for
pleasures I may never again experience. Its scenes are all before me
now, vivid as if of yesterday.

The night camp is made beside a singing stream or a bubbling spring;
the night horses are caught and staked; there is a roaring, merry fire
of fragrant cedar boughs; a side of fat ribs is roasting on a spit
before the fire, its sweet juices hissing as they drop into the flames,
and sending off odors to drive one ravenous; the rich amber contents of
the coffee pot is so full of life and strength that it is well-nigh
bursting the lid with joy over the vitality and stimulus it is to bring
you. Supper eaten, there follow pipe and cigarette, jest and bandinage
[Transcriber's note: badinage?] over the day's events; stories and
songs of love, of home, of mother; and rude impromptu epics relating
the story of victories over vicious horses, wild beasts, or savage
Indians. When the fire has burnt low and become a mass of glowing
coals, voices are hushed, the camp is still, and each, half hypnotized
by gazing i