close myself by going into
their camp. The number of saddle horses they had with them led me to
think that they were not real professional cattle thieves. Had they
been indeed rustlers it would have been a risky thing to do, as they
would have had to dispose of me in some way or other. By my horse brand
they at once knew what "outfit" I belonged to. Their brands, however,
were strange to me. They asked me to eat, of course; and I soon found
out that their party was headed by one Pete----, whose reputation I had
often heard of as being of the worst. He said he had been grazing these
cattle in some outlying park, and was now taking them home to his
ranches somewhere in New Mexico. That was all right; but since he had
passed through part of our range it was necessary to inspect the herd.
This he resisted by every means he could think of, asserting that they
were a "clean" bunch, with no "strays," and that he was in a great hurry
to push on. I insisted, however, on riding through them, when, not much
to my surprise, I found about twenty large unbranded calves, apparently
without their "mammies." On asking Pete for an explanation: "Oh," he
said, "the mammies were shore in the herd" and he "warn't no cow thief,"
but on my persisting he finally exclaimed, "Well, take your damned
_caves_ and let's get on," or some such words; so I started in and cut
out nearly twenty big unbranded calves, which certainly did not have
their mothers with them; which, therefore, were clearly not his
property; were probably ours, but whether they were or not did not
matter to me. Pete and his men pulled out home, but I caught and branded
over half of these calves before turning them loose, and it is probable
we got the rest of them at the next round-up. When a man is
single-handed and has to make his fire up as well as catch and tie down
the calves he has his hands pretty full. In this case I used only one
fire and so had to drag the calves up close to it; every bit of tie rope
in my pocket, thongs cut off the saddle, even my pocket-handkerchief,
were all brought into service; as at one time there were as many as four
calves tied down at once. I had only the one little branding-iron, a
thin bent iron rod, generally carried tied to the saddle alongside the
carbine. The branding-iron must be, if not quite red-hot, very nearly
so. Then the calf has to be ear-marked and altered.

When the mothers are near by the bellowing of the young ones as the hot
i