A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



money. The freemasonry then had its logic, and the 

 scramble for the maverick was more of a game than 

 anything else. 



The same basic motive which started Texas herds 

 north in 1868, or even earlier, applies today, in the 

 fact that cattle taken from the south to the north 

 make wonderful gains. A fat cow which will weigh 

 1,000 pounds on grass in Texas today will at the 

 same age show from 200 to 300 pounds more on the 

 bunch grass of Montana, perhaps not so much in 

 Kansas or on cornbelt bluegrass, but certainly an 

 appreciable increase. That is why the Texas feeder 

 of today is popular. It is simply its instinct to put 

 on heavy gains when taken north. I have heard 

 cowboys tell of their horses which were sold at the 

 end of the Montana trail. On returning the next 

 year it was difficult for them to recognize even pet 

 horses, which appeared to them to have grown taller 

 and spread out, giving them the appearance of en- 

 tirely different animals. Upon a casual glance at a 

 Texas "remuda" (the range name for a bunch of 

 cow ponies) after a year on Montana bunch grass, 

 the boys said that they would not have recognized 

 them as the same lot brought up the preceding season. 



One of the difficult things that I have encountered 

 in this chapter is an attempt to divide into epochs 

 the trail industry to Kansas and the Kansas City 

 market, and that to the northwest. "Joe" McCoy in 

 his book published in 1874 records a small move- 



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