h the sky for a covering. They were
always ready to share their blanket and their last ration with a less
fortunate fellow companion and always assisted each other in the many
trying situations that were continually coming up in a cowboy's life.

When we were not on the trail taking large herds of cattle or horses to
market or to be delivered to other ranches we were engaged in range
riding, moving large numbers of cattle from one grazing range to
another, keeping them together, and hunting up strays which, despite the
most earnest efforts of the range riders would get away from the main
herd and wander for miles over the plains before they could be found,
overtaken and returned to the main herd.

Then the Indians and the white outlaws who infested the country gave us
no end of trouble, as they lost no opportunity to cut out and run off
the choicest part of a herd of long horns, or the best of a band of
horses, causing the cowboys a ride of many a long mile over the dusty
plains in pursuit, and many are the fierce engagements we had, when
after a long chase of perhaps hundreds of miles over the ranges we
overtook the thieves. It then became a case of "to the victor belongs
the spoils," as there was no law respected in this wild country, except
the law of might and the persuasive qualities of the 45 Colt pistol.

Accordingly it became absolutely necessary for a cowboy to understand
his gun and know how to place its contents where it would do the most
good, therefore I in common with my other companions never lost an
opportunity to practice with my 45 Colts and the opportunities were not
lacking by any means and so in time I became fairly proficient and able
in most cases to hit a barn door providing the door was not too far
away, and was steadily improving in this as I was in experience and
knowledge of the other branches of the business which I had chosen as my
life's work and which I had begun to like so well, because while the
life was hard and in some ways exacting, yet it was free and wild and
contained the elements of danger which my nature craved and which began
to manifest itself when I was a pugnacious youngster on the old
plantation in our rock battles and the breaking of the wild horses. I
gloried in the danger, and the wild and free life of the plains, the new
country I was continually traversing, and the many new scenes and
incidents continually arising in the life of a rough rider.

CHAPTER VII.