20 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



many icicles. Entire herds have perished in consequence of such a storm. 

 Mere cold, however, will kill only very weak animals, which is fortunate 

 for us, as the spirit in the thermometer during" winter often sinks to fifty 

 degrees below zero, the cold being literally arctic ; yet though the cattle 

 become thin during such a snap of weather, and sometimes have their 

 ears, tails, and even horns frozen off, they nevertheless rarely die from the 

 cold alone. But if there is a blizzard blowing at such a time, the cattle 



A DISPUTE OVER A BRAND. 



need shelter, and if caught in the open, will travel for scores of miles 

 before the storm, until they reach a break in the ground, or some stretch 

 of dense woodland, which will shield them from the blasts. If cattle trav- 

 eling in this manner come to some obstacle that they cannot pass, as, for 

 instance, a wire fence or a steep railway embankment, they will not try to 

 make their way back against the storm, but will simply stand with their 

 tails to it until they drop dead in their tracks ; and, accordingly, in some 

 parts of the country but luckily far to the south of us the railways 

 are fringed with countless skeletons of beasts that have thus perished, 

 while many of the long wire fences make an almost equally bad showing. 



