ial demand for this
quality in the export trade of dressed beef, and that owing to their
cheapness and consequent profit they were in demand for distillery
feeding.

Fifteen dollars a head was agreed on as the price, and we earned it a
second time in delivering that herd at Fort Worth. Many of the animals
were ten years old, surly when irritated, and ready for a fight when
their day-dreams were disturbed. There was no treating them humanely,
for every effort in that direction was resented by the old rascals,
individually and collectively. The first day we gathered two hundred,
and the attempt to hold them under herd was a constant fight,
resulting in every hoof arising on the bed-ground at midnight and
escaping to their old haunts. I worked as good a ranch outfit of men
as the State ever bred, I was right there in the saddle with them,
yet, in spite of every effort, to say nothing of the profanity wasted,
we lost the herd. The next morning every lad armed himself with a
prod-pole long as a lance and tipped with a sharp steel brad, and we
commenced regathering. Thereafter we corralled them at night, which
always called for a free use of ropes, as a number usually broke away
on approaching the pens. Often we hog-tied as many as a dozen, letting
them lie outside all night and freeing them back into the herd in the
morning. Even the day-herding was a constant fight, as scarcely an
hour passed but some old resident would scorn the restraint imposed
upon his liberties and deliberately make a break for freedom. A pair
of horsemen would double on the deserter, and with a prod-pole to his
ear and the pressure of a man and horse bearing their weight on
the same, a circle would be covered and Toro always reentered the
day-herd. One such lesson was usually sufficient, and by reaching
corrals every night and penning them, we managed, after two weeks'
hard work, to land them in the stockyards at Fort Worth. The buyer
remained with and accompanied us during the gathering and en route to
the railroad, evidently enjoying the continuous performance. He
proved a good mixer, too, and returned annually thereafter. For years
following I contracted with him, and finally shipped on consignment,
our business relations always pleasant and increasing in volume until
his death.

Returning with the outfit, I continued on west to the new ranch, while
the men began the fall branding at home. On arriving on the Double
Mountain range, I found the ou