nfrequent uses cattle had no definite value.

The Mexican, however, knew how to handle cows. He could ride a horse,
and he could rope cattle and brand them. Most of the cattle of a wide
range would go to certain water-holes more or less regularly, where they
might be roughly collected or estimated. This coming of the cattle to
the watering-places made it unnecessary for owners of cattle to acquire
ranch land. It was enough to secure the water-front where the cows must
go to drink. That gave the owner all the title he needed. His right to
the increase he could prove by another phenomenon of nature, just as
inevitable and invariable as that of thirst. The maternal instinct of a
cow and the dependence of the calf upon its mother gave the old rancher
of immemorial times sufficient proof of ownership in the increase of
his herd. The calf would run with its own mother and with no other
cow through its first season. So that if an old Mexican ranchero saw a
certain number of cows at his watering-places, and with them calves,
he knew that all before him were his property--or, at least, he claimed
them as such and used them.

Still, this was loose-footed property. It might stray away after all,
or it might be driven away. Hence, in some forgotten time, our shrewd
Spaniard invented a system of proof of ownership which has always lain
at the very bottom of the organized cow industry; he invented the method
of branding. This meant his sign, his name, his trade-mark, his proof of
ownership. The animal could not shake it off. It would not burn off in
the sun or wash off in the rain. It went with the animal and could not
be eradicated from the animal's hide. Wherever the bearer was seen, the
brand upon its hide provided certain identification of the owner.

Now, all these basic ideas of the cow industry were old on the lower
range in Texas when our white men first drifted thither. The cattle
industry, although in its infancy, and although supposed to have no
great future, was developed long before Texas became a republic. It
never, indeed, changed very much from that time until the end of its own
career.

One great principle was accepted religiously even in those early and
crude days. A man's cow was HIS cow. A man's brand was HIS brand. There
must be no interference with his ownership. Hence certain other phases
of the industry followed inevitably. These cattle, these calves, each
branded by the iron of the owner, in spite of all p