IV 



The Round-Up 



JURING the winter-time there is ordinarily but httle work 

 done among the cattle. There is some line riding, and 

 a continual lookout is kept for the very weak animals, — 

 usually cows and calves, who have to be driven in, fed, 

 and housed ; but most of the stock are left to shift for them- 

 selves, undisturbed. Almost every stock-growers' association 

 forbids branding any calves before the spring round-up. If 

 great bands of cattle wander off the range, parties may be fitted 

 out to go after them and bring them back ; but this is only done when 

 absolutely necessary, as when the drift of the cattle has been towards an 

 Indian reservation or a settled granger country, for the weather is very 

 severe, and the horses are so poor that their food must be carried along. 



The bulk of the work is done durino- the summer, including- the late 

 spring and early fall, and consists mainly in a succession of round-ups, 

 beginning, with us, in May and ending towards the last of October. 



But a good deal may be done in the intervals by riding over one's 

 range. Frequently, too, herding will be practiced on a large scale. 



Still more important is the "trail" work; cattle, while driven from one 

 range to another, or to a shipping point for beef, being said to be "on the 

 trail." For years, the over-supply from the vast breeding ranches to the 

 south, especially in Texas, has been driven northward in large herds, 

 either to the shipping towns along the great railroads, or else to the 

 fattening ranges of the North-west ; it having been found, so far, that 

 while the calf crop is larger in the South, beeves become much heavier in 

 the North. Such cattle, for the most part, went along tolerably well- 

 marked routes or trails, which became for the time being of great impor- 

 tance, flourishing — and extremely lawless — towns growing up along them; 

 but with the growth of the railroad system, and above all with the filling- 



