WESTERN CATTLE LANDS. 337 



siderable readiness of resource and acquirement, such as is cer- 

 tainly very seldom possessed by the ordinary day labourer of the 

 Old Country. He is scarcely ever at a loss, whatever the task 

 to which he is called upon to set his hand. To be classed as " a 

 good worker on a ranche " he must be at least a fair carpenter, 

 a builder, a digger, a teamster — able to put in doors and 

 windows, work a mowing-machine or sink a pump. If, in 

 addition to these accomplishments, he can ride a broncho and 

 give his help in a corral at roping or branding cattle, so 

 much the better. But these last-named acquirements more 

 particularly belong to the province of the cowboy, whose talents 

 are not expected to be of so universal an order. The cowboy 

 pretends to do little if anything except in connection with 

 handling stock, and he — not altogether unnaturally — looks 

 upon himself as belonging to quite a higher caste than the 

 Working Man. Of the latter the reader will by this time have 

 had enough — a state of satiety that in practice he will be able 

 to reach after an astonishingly short experience, should it ever 

 be his lot to occupy the position of employer. 



The Cowboy of the West is, far more than any other section 

 of the cattle community, a distinct outcome of its peculiar 

 industry. Once enrolled and educated in the ranks, he 

 assumes all the characteristics and attributes of that body ; 

 and, no matter what his former state of life may have been, 

 would seem altogether to drop the past, to sink the future, 

 and contentedly adopt the habits, tastes, and existence of the 

 cowboy for all time. Not the least of his peculiarities is his 

 dress, which is worth a word of description, and must be taken 

 in due order from his skin outwards. Next to his natural 

 covering he puts on warm woollen jersey and ditto drawers, 

 when with a goodly cheque in his pocket he finds himself 

 twice a year in the nearest town, to " burn up " his wages, in a 

 space of time simply marvellous to Eastern understanding, 

 considering that he has been earning forty dollars a month 

 " with everything found." These garments he takes off 

 occasionally when he deems that they want washing; but 



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