very animal, besides the regular brand
of the owner, has his tail bobbed and a "road-mark" put upon him during
the drive, and in a mixed herd the rider goes in and "cuts out" all the
cattle that bear his brand and runs them into a separate flock.

When cattle are sleeping it requires very little to stampede them. A
loud breath, the clank of a chain tied to the leg of a wagon-mule, or
the galloping of a horse will sometimes cause them to be up and gone in
the twinkling of an eye. They will run over whatever is in their path,
and the only way to stop them is to get them to "milling," or travelling
in a circle, when they will wind themselves up like a ball and stop. It
is instinctive with them to run when anything else is running, and away
they go at the slightest noise, with the cow-boys in wild pursuit after
them.

Living on Stinking Creek, in the Indian Territory, just off the great
trail, is an Irishman named Fitzpatrick, who came to this country not
many years ago, a common specimen of the bog-trotting Tipperary Paddy.
Floating on the tide of emigration westward, he finally went into the
Indian Nation, and, building a cabin in the timber where the trail
crossed Stinking Creek, he proceeded to gather up the cattle that
dropped from the great herds going through or were lost in some big
stampede. His business throve, and in time he married a Choctaw wife and
went to housekeeping, and to day he is the owner of many thousand
beeves, and is regarded as a rising stock-man. He still collects the
stampeded cattle in the creek timber,--a striking example of the strange
ways in which men become rich. More than one big stock-man in Texas
began his career by branding the mavericks, or wild unbranded and
unclaimed heifers, found in the river timber. As an instance of the
manner in which they worked up a herd, it is related of a successful
stock-man that he started with a solitary steer, which he turned loose
on the prairie, and _the first year he branded forty calves_!...

It was with a feeling of sincere regret that the writer of these lines,
meeting with a severe accident, prepared to return to where his home
nestled in the Alleghanies, after a sojourn of eighteen months with
these wild riders of the plains. Lest the impression be conveyed that
these are irreligious and godless men, let the reader fancy a group of
men, belted and spurred, seated in a rude arbor, listening reverently to
a tall cow-boy who has been selected by u