finally agreed. Word was brought in that M---- was lying out on the
prairie, prostrated by the sun, helped no doubt by his realizing that
his little scheme had been defeated. We had him brought into camp, but I
declined to see him and returned to Fort Sumner. Soon afterwards M----
threw up the sponge, so to speak, and agreed to turn the property over
to us. These M---- cattle, numbering only 2000, did not justify the
running of a mess wagon and full outfit, so I made arrangements with a
very strong neighbouring ranch company to run the cattle for us, only
myself attending the round-ups to see that our interests were properly
protected.

Meantime the stock horses must be looked after. Fraudulently M---- had
started new brands on the last two crops of colts, the pick of them
going into his wife's brand; and her mares ranged with M----'s, now
ours. The band ran apparently anywhere. They had the whole Staked Plains
of New Mexico to wander over, there being then absolutely no fences for
a distance of 200 miles. Some 200 head of the gentler stock ranged near
home; the balance, claimed to number some 300 more, were mixed up with
the mustangs and were practically wild creatures, some of them having
never been rounded up for over two years.

By this time some of M----'s old hands had come over to my side. They
knew the country, knew how best to handle these horses, and by
favourable promise I got them to undertake to help in discriminating as
to which colts were the Company's property and which Mrs M----'s. So I
put up an "outfit," wagon, cook, mounts for seven or eight men, etc.,
and set out on a very big undertaking indeed, and one that M----himself
had not successfully accomplished for several years--a clean round-up of
all the stock horses in the country. These Staked Plains (Llanos
Estacados) were so called because the first road or trail across them
had to be staked out with poles at more or less long intervals to show
direction, there being no visible landmarks in that immense level
country. They are one continuous sweep of slightly undulating, almost
level land, well grassed, almost without living water anywhere, but
dotted all over with depressions in the ground, generally circular, some
of great size, some deeper than others, which we called "dry lakes,"
from the fact that for most of the year they were nearly all dry, only
here and there, and at long distances apart, a few would hold sufficient
muddy water to carry