this
discipline will generally reduce the stiffening in a bull's tail to a
minimum and render him as docile as a calf. An expert cow-boy can rope,
throw down, and tie up a cow in just one minute from the time he rides
up to her.

But a man knows nothing of "punching the heifers" who has not been
through on the "trail" to Kansas. Going for days together without
eating, never out of the saddle, mounting a fresh horse as fast as one
is broken down, the limit of endurance is reached, and one who has stood
the test, and can boast of having "busted the Indian Nation square
open," attains respect in the cow-boy's eyes, and is considered to have
taken his degree.

In 1874 the largest drive to Kansas ever recorded took place, when half
a million beeves were driven through. The trail was beaten into a broad
path a mile wide and extending fifteen hundred miles in length. For
miles and miles the string of lowing herds stretched along, while the
keen riders darted hither and thither, keeping them well on the trail.
At night the voices of the men singing to their sleeping cattle could be
heard all along the line, while the long string of camp-fires, throwing
their lurid glare against the black vault overhead, called back to the
minds of many old gray-bearded cow-boys the stormy times when similar
lines of light glimmered along the Rappahannock, and pierced the murky
gloom of some Virginia night. Sometimes the music of a violin, sounding
strangely shrill in the calm night air, would mingle with the deep tones
of voices singing "The Maid of Monterey," or "Shamus O'Brien," the
cow-boy's favorite tunes.

In passing through the Indian Nation it is no uncommon thing for a band
of Indians, all painted and varnished up, to ride down on a beef-herd,
and, singling out the finest cattle in the bunch, compel the white
owners of the stock to cut them out in a separate flock, when the
Indians will gather around them and run them off. Some years ago a party
of five Indians came riding down on a herd which was resting on the
banks of a small creek, and demanded of the boss herdsman ten of the
fattest steers he had. The boss was a bold man, and, looking around on
his fifteen stalwart cow-boys, swore that no five Indians should take
his beeves from him, and, using the polite phraseology of the Plains,
told his redskin visitors to "go to hell." The baffled five retired into
the forest, but soon returned with an increased force of fifty men, who
ch