e;
people from a hundred miles away came to see and learn the reason. No
satisfactory explanation was suggested, and finally they were compelled
to accept my own one, and agree that leaving the cattle undisturbed by
abandoning the fall round-up was the real solution of the problem. The
only work my men did that winter was to keep the fences up and in good
shape, and whenever they saw stray cattle in my pasture to turn them out
at once, fearing the danger of bad example. Next winter, the loco being
still very bad, the same tactics were adopted and only one solitary
yearling of mine was affected. So ended the worst loco visitation
probably ever experienced in the West; not perhaps that the plant was
more abundant than at some other periods, though I think it was, but for
some unknown reason the cattle ate it more freely.

The temperature on these plains sometimes went so low as 20 deg. below zero,
with wind blowing. There was no natural shelter, literally nothing as
big as your hat in the pasture, and several men advised the building of
sheds, wind-breaks, etc. But experience told me just the opposite. I had
seen cattle (well fed and carefully tended) freeze to death inside sheds
and barns. Also I had seen whole bunches of cattle standing shivering
behind open sheds and wind-breaks till they practically froze to death
or became so emaciated as to eventually die of poverty. If you give
cattle shelter they will be always hanging around it. So I built no
sheds or anything else. When a blizzard came my cattle had to travel,
and the continued travelling backwards and forwards kept the blood in
circulation. There were a few cases of horns, feet, ears and mammae
frozen off, but I never had a cow frozen to death and never lost any
directly from the severity of the weather. More than that, I never fed a
pound of hay.

Our name for calves that had lost their mothers, and therefore the
nourishment obtained from milk, was "dogies." These dogies were ever
afterwards unmistakable in appearance, and remained stunted, "runty"
little animals of no value. Yet, if taken up early enough and fed on
nourishing diet, they would develop into as large and well-grown cattle
as their more fortunate fellows.[2]

[Footnote 2: Appendix, Note III.]

My foreman was an ordinary cowboy, but he was a thorough cattleman, had
already been in my employ for seven years, and his "little
peculiarities" were pretty well known to me. He became desperately
jea