eized one hind foot, pressed his boot heel
against the other hind leg close to the body, and sat down behind the
animal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When once you have had
the wind knocked out of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to think
this unnecessarily rough. Then one or the other threw off the rope.
Homer rode away, coiling the rope as he went.

"Hot iron!" yelled one of the bull-doggers.

"Marker!" yelled the other.

Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron smoothly
against the flank. A smoke and the smell of scorching hair arose.
Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a brief
moment it was over. The brand showed cherry, which is the proper
colour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark.

In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with a
sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear. Then he
nicked out a swallow-tail in the other. The pieces he thrust into his
pocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus check
the Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calves branded.[3] The
bull-dogger let go. The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelled
over by his worried mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk
it over.

It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as to
the extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is to some extent
painful, and could some other method of ready identification be
devised, it might be as well to adopt it in preference. But in the
circumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and hundreds of
owners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a New
England movement looking toward small brass tags to be hung from the
ear. Inextinguishable laughter followed the spread of this doctrine
through Arizona. Imagine a puncher descending to examine politely the
ear-tags of wild cattle on the open range or in a round-up.

But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and ear-marking
are not so painful as one might suppose. The scorching hardly
penetrates below the outer tough skin--only enough to kill the roots of
the hair--besides which it must be remembered that cattle are not so
sensitive as the higher nervous organisms. A calf usually bellows when
the iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes to
feeding or to looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even
take the trouble