OUT ON THE RANGE ! 9 



capacity of the land for yielding shelter as they do to the abundant and 

 good quality of the grass. High up among the foot-hills of the moun- 

 tains cattle will not live through the winter ; and an open, rolling prairie 

 land of heavy rainfall, where in consequence the snow lies deep and 

 there is no protection from the furious cold winds, is useless for winter 

 grazing, no matter how thick and high the feed. The three essentials for 

 a range are grass, water, and shelter : the water is only needed in summer 

 and the shelter in winter, while it may be doubted if drought during the 

 hot months has ever killed off more cattle than have died of exposure 

 on shelterless ground to the icy weather, lasting from November to April. 



The finest summer range may be valueless either on account of its 

 lack of shelter or because it is in a region of heavy snowfall portions of 

 territory lying in the same latitude and not very far apart often differing 

 widely in this respect, or extraordinarily severe weather may cause a heavy 

 death-rate utterly unconnected with overstocking. This was true of the 

 loss that visited the few herds which spent the very hard winter of 1880 

 on the northern cattle plains. These were the pioneers of their kind, and 

 the grass was all that could be desired ; yet the extraordinary severity 

 of the weather proved too much for the cattle. This was especially the 

 case with those herds consisting of " pilgrims," as they are called that 

 is, of animals driven up on to the range from the south, and therefore in 

 poor condition. One such herd of pilgrims on the Powder River suffered 

 a loss of thirty-six hundred out of a total of four thousand, and the sur- 

 vivors kept alive only by browsing on the tops of cottonwoods felled for 

 them. Even seasoned animals fared very badly. One great herd in the 

 Yellowstone Valley lost about a fourth of its number, the loss falling mainly 

 on the breeding cows, calves, and bulls, always the chief sufferers, as the 

 steers, and also the dry cows, will get through almost anything. The 

 loss here would have been far heavier than it was had it not been for a 

 curious trait shown by the cattle. They kept in bands of several hundred 

 each, and during the time of the deep snows a band would make a 

 start and travel several miles in a straight line, plowing their way 

 through the drifts and beating out a broad track ; then, when stopped 

 by a frozen water-course or chain of buttes, they would turn back and 

 graze over the trail thus made, the only place where they could get at 

 the grass. 



A drenching rain, followed by a severe snap of cold, is even more 

 destructive than deep snow, for the saturated coats of the poor beasts are 

 turned into sheets of icy mail, and the grass-blades, frozen at the roots as 

 well as above, change into sheaves of brittle spears as uneatable as so 



5 



