THE ROUND-UP 65 



Every morning certain riders are detached to drive and to guard the 

 day herd, which is most monotonous work, the men being on from 4 in 

 the morning till 8 in the evening, the only rest coming at dinner-time, 

 when they change horses. When the herd has reached the camping- 

 ground there is nothing to do but to loll listlessly over the saddle-bow in 

 the blazing sun watching the cattle feed and sleep, and seeing that they do 

 not spread out too much. Plodding slowly along on the trail through the 

 columns of dust stirred up by the hoofs is not much better. Cattle travel 

 best and fastest strung out in long lines ; the swiftest taking the lead in 

 single file, while the weak and the lazy, the young calves and the poor 

 cows, crowd together in the rear. Two men travel along with the leaders, 

 one on each side, to point them in the right direction ; one or two others 

 keep by the flanks, and the rest are in the rear to act as "drag-drivers" 

 and hurry up the phalanx of reluctant weaklings. If the foremost of the 

 string travels too fast, one rider will go along on the trail a few rods ahead, 

 and thus keep them back so that those in the rear will not be left behind. 



Generally all this is very tame and irksome ; but by fits and starts there 

 will be little flurries of excitement. Two or three of the circle riders may 

 unexpectedly come over a butte near by with a bunch of cattle, which at 

 once start for the day herd, and then there will be a few minutes' furious 

 riding hither and thither to keep them out. Or the cattle may begin to 

 run, and then get "milling" — that is, all crowd together into a mass like 

 a ball, wherein they move round and round, trying to keep their heads 

 towards the center, and refusing to leave it. The only way to start them 

 is to force one's horse in among them and cut out some of their number^*-* 

 which then begin to travel off by themselves, when the others will prob- 

 ably follow. But in spite of occasional incidents of this kind, day-herd- 

 ing has a dreary sameness about it that makes the men dislike and seek 

 to avoid it. 



From 8 in the evening till 4 in the morning the day herd becomes a 

 night herd. Each wagon in succession undertakes to guard it for a night, 

 dividing the time into watches of two hours apiece, a couple of riders tak- 

 ing each watch. This is generally chilly and tedious ; but at times it is 

 accompanied by intense excitement and danger, when the cattle become 

 stampeded, whether by storm or otherwise. The first and the last watches 

 are those chosen by preference ; the others are disagreeable, the men hav- 

 ing to turn out cold and sleepy, in the pitchy darkness, the two hours of 

 chilly wakefulness completely breaking the night's rest. The first guards 

 have to bed the cattle down, though the day-herders often do this them- 

 selves : it simply consists in hemming them into as small a space as pos- 



