g earthquake. Men and women
grasped their bridles with firmer fingers, and pressed still nearer to
the crests of the many mounds. Then over the hills on every side came a
mass of tossing horns and sleek shining bodies, separated here and
there by a shouting vaquero, whose black and silver seemed pierced at
every point by those white curving horns. The cattle, several thousand
in number, trotted over the hills and toward the corral swiftly, but in
good order, held well in check by the careful vaqueros. There was no
cheering, for excitement was to be avoided. The cattle would stand any
amount of the shouting they were used to, but little from unaccustomed
throats.

In the corral, at its farther end, stood, by an oven, a tall muscular
Indian, the most famous brander in that part of the country. He was
stripped to the waist, and as the first steer was driven through the
narrow gate, he plucked a red-hot iron from the coals. The beast,
kicking and bellowing, was flung to the ground by a dexterous twist of
his tail, two more Indians held him in position, and the branding was
accomplished.

Almost before he was up another was prostrate; and they followed each
other in such rapid succession that the wonder was some were not
branded twice. As fast as each brute received his mark he was driven
out of another gate and over the hills, lest his ill-nature should be
the cause of wild disorder.

The vaqueros handled their dangerous charges with admirable skill,
keeping those to be branded in groups of a hundred or more at some
distance from the corral, riding round them constantly with peremptory
shouts. Other vaqueros, belonging to the same herd, segregated the
animals immediately required and drove them in a straight line for the
corral. There was not a moment of pause. The vaqueros, the brander, and
his assistants seemed impervious to fatigue; the cattle, shifting
uneasily in their bands, leaped eagerly from the lines at the first
signal from the vaquero bearing down on them like a fury from the
corral. On the far side, otherwise deserted, the sore indignant beasts
scampered as fast as their legs could carry them whithersoever their
vaquero chose to drive.

After two hours or more, the atmosphere was charged with a certain
breathless excitement, as was natural enough. The constant cyclonic
rush of vaqueros and cattle, the angry bellowings, the increasing
masses of animals, the furious shouts of the men, had changed a
peaceabl