ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND WESTERN CATTLE LAND. 125 



are under the direction of the most experienced of the 

 'boys/ and work in combination some definite area. 

 The steers that have been collected from it are then 

 sorted out according as they are branded with the 

 brands of the diff erect ranches and driven into the 

 respective main bunches or herds, which are, of course, 

 as well as the horses, guarded night and day, the 

 night-herding forming the hardest part of the cow- 

 boy's work, and the one which he dislikes the most. 

 Our waggon was not ready to leave until several 

 hours after the round-up waggon had pulled out, the 

 rendezvous being at Dry Creek. The King, with 

 Frank, ' started out ' to renew their pursuit after the 

 wily antelope, while I rode ahead of our own outfit 

 (which consisted of waggon and team, as our two 

 spare hunting horses were being herded and driven 

 with the round-up horses). And it was well that I 

 did so, for a more difficult place for one maD to find, 

 across the bare hills in the deceptive atmosphere, 

 could hardly be imagined. 



Occasionally I heard a distant shot, and almost 

 invariably a few antelope (which were excessively 

 numerous) would appear scudding across the horizon, 

 from the direction of the shot, the bucks at their 

 heavy, lumbering, yet active gallop, the does with an 

 airy fleetness, and both like the wind. 



We pitched our tent some distance from the round- 

 up tents at Dry Creek, as the early rising and horse- 

 catching and the changing during the night of the 

 ' boys ' whose turn it was to herd the steers or 



