CATTLE HERDING. 889 



the water from spilling badly; also a basket of corn-cobs that 

 have been well saturated with coal-oil. Stick one of these 

 cobs on the tail-rod of your wagon, light it with a match, and, 

 with a wet sack in one hand, and your rod with the burning 

 cob in the other, start backwards along your furrow, and you 

 can light the grass as fast as you can walk. Watch sharply 

 and constantly the outer edge of your furrow, that the most feeble 

 blaze in that quarter may be instantly extinguished. See to it 

 that the man firing the opposite edge of your guard keeps just 

 abreast of you, for sometimes the wind comes in sudden puds, 

 and you must be ready instantly to master your fire, or away 

 it will go, faster than your team can run, and you will be the 

 means of letting loose the very enemy you are endeavoring to 

 secure yourself against. 



It is best to join in with some of your neighboring ranch- 

 men to do this work, as the same guard may be so constructed 

 as to protect several herd-grounds; and then you can have 

 a strong force and push ahead rapidly with your burning, 

 with little risk, and if the fire should "get out," the same force 

 is on hand, and available to control it and save the range. 

 When, in a still time, a puff of wind comes, it almost always 

 falls a dead calm again, in just a minute or two, which gener- 

 ally lasts some little time, so that a number of willing men, 

 armed with wet sacks, may beat out the runaway fire and save 

 the range. 



Take no avoidable risk, but use every precaution possible; 

 and while you are in the business, do n't forget to burn off 

 thoroughly your stack-yard. Do n't be content with a simple 

 guard around it, but see that it is as bare as a cleanly-shaven 

 face. Every year, thousands of tons of hay are burned in the 

 west because men will take the risk of burning off their guards 

 after the hay is stacked, or because of a narrow guard. A 

 head-fire, in a gale, will pick up a piece of dried cow-dung and 

 hurl it fifty or a hundred feet, and the instant it strikes in. 

 the grass, a new fire is started. I once saw such a fire cross 

 the Smoky Hill River, with seemingly no check to its rapid 

 advance. 



