iven
northward over the trail. The cattle were worked in pens much more than
in the North, and on all the ranches there were chutes with steering
gates, by means of which individuals of a herd could be dexterously
shifted into various corrals. The branding of the calves was done
ordinarily in one of these corrals and on foot, the calf being always
roped by both forelegs; otherwise the work of the cowpunchers was much
like that of their brothers in the North. As a whole, however, they were
distinctly more proficient with the rope, and at least half of them were
Mexicans.

There were some bands of wild cattle living only in the densest timber
of the river bottoms which were literally as wild as deer, and moreover
very fierce and dangerous. The pursuit of these was exciting and
hazardous in the extreme. The men who took part in it showed not only
the utmost daring but the most consummate horsemanship and wonderful
skill in the use of the rope, the coil being hurled with the force and
precision of an iron quiot; a single man speedily overtaking, roping,
throwing, and binding down the fiercest steer or bull.

There had been many peccaries, or, as the Mexicans and cowpunchers of
the border usually call them, javalinas, round this ranch a few years
before the date of my visit. Until 1886, or thereabouts, these little
wild hogs were not much molested, and abounded in the dense chaparral
around the lower Rio Grande. In that year, however, it was suddenly
discovered that their hides had a market value, being worth four
bits--that is, half a dollar--apiece; and many Mexicans and not a few
shiftless Texans went into the business of hunting them as a means of
livelihood. They were more easily killed than deer, and, as a result,
they were speedily exterminated in many localities where they had
formerly been numerous, and even where they were left were to be found
only in greatly diminished numbers. On this particular Frio ranch the
last little band had been killed nearly a year before. There were three
of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the cowboys stumbled on
them early one morning while out with a dog. After half a mile's
chase the three peccaries ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the
cowboys, dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the end
of a pole, and killed them all.

Many anecdotes were related to me of what they had done in the old days
when they were plentiful on the ranch. They were then