II 



OUT ON THE RANGE 



STRANGER in the North-western cattle country is 

 especially struck by the resemblance the settlers show 

 in their pursuits and habits to the Southern people. 

 Nebraska and Dakota, east of the Missouri, resem- 

 ble Minnesota and Iowa and the States farther east, 

 but Montana and the Dakota cow country show 

 more kinship with Texas ; for while elsewhere in 

 America settlement has advanced along the paral- 

 lels of latitude, on the great plains it has followed 

 meridians of longitude and has gone northerly rather 

 than westerly. The business is carried on as it is in the 

 South. The rough-rider of the plains, the hero of rope and 

 revolver, is first cousin to the backwoodsman of the south- 

 ern Alleghanies, the man of the ax and the rifle; he is only a 

 unique offshoot of the frontier stock of the South-west. The 

 very term "round-up" is used by the cowboys in the exact 

 sense in which it is employed by the hill people and mount- 

 aineers of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, with whom also 

 labor is dear and poor land cheap, and whose few cattle are consequently- 

 branded and turned loose in the woods exactly as is done with the great 

 herds on the plains. 



But the ranching industry itself was copied from the Mexicans, of 

 whose land and herds the South-western frontiersmen of Texas took 

 forcible possession ; and the traveler in the North-west will see at a 

 glance tHat the terms and practices of our business are largely of Spanish 

 origin. The cruel curb-bit and heavy stock-saddle, with its high horn 

 and cantle, prove that we have adopted Spanish- American horse-gear ; 

 and the broad hat, huge blunt spurs, and leather chaperajos of the rider, 

 as well as the corral in which the stock are penned, all alike show the 

 same ancestry. Throughout the cattle country east of the Rocky Mount- 



