ON A CATTLE-RANGE 



calf-brands on many English- owned western cattle- 

 ranches were a stationary, or even a diminishing, and 

 not an increasing quantity during the ' eighties.' 



The number of the yearly calf-brand was the 

 legitimate and unerring test of the natural increase 

 and prosperity of the herd. Strange to say, however, 

 many small western owners possessed, about this 

 period, ragged old Texas cows of an extraordinary 

 fecundity, even in seasons when the big outfit of the 

 neighbourhood had had, maybe, a very poor branding 

 season. Two celebrated cows, for example, on Sand 

 Creek, belonging to an old native rancher of my 

 acquaintance and his wife, were known in two years 

 to have ostensibly produced no less than fifty-two 

 calves. 



This particular miracle happened in later times 

 than those of which I write, and when small native 

 cattle-owners of a legitimate kind had increased in 

 numbers, and branding other people's calves had 

 come to be looked upon with some public disfavour. 

 It consequently resulted in a dreadful tragedy. The 

 old rancher and his wife were found hanging to a 

 convenient cotton wood - tree in the neighbourhood 

 one fine morning, while rumour had it that the 

 lynch ing-party who had ridden up Sand Creek that 

 dark night comprised some of the most respectable of 

 Carbon County aristocrats, including a candidate for 

 the State Legislature. The actual perpetrators of 

 this hanging episode were never discovered. This 

 is another story ; but enough has been written to 

 indicate how the old open-range system of the 

 ' eighties ' gave opportunity for unlawful branding 

 operations. 



To return to the point whence I started : In 1883 I 



