THE DESIRE FOR ADVENTURE 9 



branding, mostly young calves, who of course had 

 to be got out with their mothers. The usual mode 

 of doing this was to pick on a site for a small camp 

 away from the main cattle camp, and having got out 

 a beast with its calf, to leave her there and gradually 

 get the nucleus of a little herd consisting entirely 

 of mothers with their calves. Having got together 

 a good mob of young cattle for branding, the next 

 task would be to drive them to the cattle yards near 

 the homestead, and the cattle we had collected in the 

 big cattle camp would be allowed to disperse among 

 the ranges again. 



Work among cattle requires smart, plucky riding. 

 One advantage to the cattle man is that his horses 

 know a great deal about the game. But this is not 

 an advantage always to the new chum. I have often 

 noticed an English rider, perfect for taking a horse 

 over all sorts of country in England, finding himself 

 quite at sea in cattle country, for the reason that he 

 does not understand that the horse knows the ways 

 of the cattle, and will follow its own bent rather than 

 be guided blindly by his rider. All the big accidents 

 that I have known in riding after cattle have been 

 caused by a difference of opinion between the horse 

 and his rider as to which was the better side of a tree 

 to pass on. When a difference of opinion of this 

 sort crops up and both horse and rider are stubborn, 

 the usual result is to land them head on to the tree, 

 possibly with cracked skulls or broken necks. But 



