-up
began in March, far down the river, and slowly worked north to our
range. Our wagon, one of many more, would join the work some 110 miles
south of our range, but I sent individual men to much greater distances.
The work continued slowly through the range, branding the spring calves,
and each outfit separating its own cattle and driving its own herd.
Twelve or more wagons meant some 300 riders and about 3000 saddle
horses. So the operation was done on a grand scale; thousands of cattle
were handled every day, and altogether such a big round-up was a very
busy and interesting scene. Intricate and complicated work it was, too,
though not perhaps apparent to an outsider; but under a good round-up
boss, who was placed over the bosses of all the wagons, it was wonderful
how smoothly the work went on. A general round-up took a long time and
was no sooner over than another was begun at the far south border (the
Mexico line) and the thing repeated. Our own cattle had got into the
habit of drifting south whenever winter set in. It took us all summer to
get them back again, and no sooner back than a cold sleet or rain would
start them south. In fact, in winter few of our own cattle were at home,
the cattle on our range being then mostly those drifted from the
northern part of the territory. Such were the conditions in a "free
range" country, and these conditions broke nearly all these big outfits,
or at least compelled them to market their stuff for whatever it would
bring. Partly on account of long-drawnout lawsuits we held on for seven
or eight years, when on a recovery of prices our Company also closed out
its live-stock interests.

During the turning-over of these, the Company's cattle, to the
purchasers, of course they had to be all branded, not with a recorded
brand, but simply with a tally brand, thus /**, on the hip. Had there
been a convenient separate pasture to put the tallied cattle into as
they were tallied, much work would have been saved and no opportunity
offered for fraud, such as will now be suggested and explained. The
method adopted was to begin gathering at one end of the range, tally the
herd collected, and then necessarily turn them loose. But we had bad
stormy weather and these tallied cattle drifted and scattered all over
the country and mixed up with those still not rounded up. This at once
gave the opportunity for an evilly-inclined man to do just as was soon
rumoured and reported to me. It was even