OF A RANCHMAN 15 



The small ranches are often quite close to 

 one another, say within a couple of miles; 

 but the home ranch of a big outfit will not 

 have another building within ten or twenty 

 miles of it, or, indeed, if the country is dry, 

 not within fifty. The ranch-house may be 

 only a mud dugout, or a " shack " made of 

 logs stuck upright into the ground; more 

 often it is a fair-sized, well-made building of 

 hewn logs, divided into several rooms. 

 Around it are grouped the other buildings 

 log-stables, cow-sheds, and hay-ricks, an out- 

 house in which to store things, and on large 

 ranches another house in which the cowboys 

 sleep. The strongly made, circular horse- 

 corral, with a snubbing-post in the middle, 

 stands close by; the larger cow-corral, in 

 which the stock is branded, may be some dis- 

 tance off. A small patch of ground is usu- 

 ally enclosed as a vegetable garden, and a 

 very large one, with water in it, as a pasture 

 to be used only in special cases. All the 

 work is done on horseback, and the quantity 

 of ponies is thus of necessity very great, 



