esides are not nearly so hardy. The
white face is therefore king of the range. And bulls with red rings
round the eyes by preference, as they can stand the bright glare of
these hot, dry countries better. It used to be my keen delight to attend
the annual cattle shows and auction sales of pure-bred bulls, and I
would feel their hides and criticize their points till I almost began to
imagine myself as competent as the ring judges.

The ranch was in the heart of the great buffalo range. (Indeed the
Comanche Indians, and even some white men, used to believe firmly that
the buffaloes each spring came up out of the ground like ants somewhere
on these Staked Plains, and from thence made their annual pilgrimage
north.) It seems these animals were not loco eaters.

On my first coming to New Mexico there were still some buffaloes on the
plain, the last remnant of the uncountable, inconceivable numbers that
not long before had swarmed over the country. Even when the first
railroads were built trains were sometimes held up for hours to let the
herds pass. As late as 1871 Colonel Dodge relates that he rode for
twenty-five miles directly through an immense herd, the whole country
around him and in view being like a solid mass of buffaloes, all moving
north. In fact, during these years the migrating herd was declared to
have a front of thirty to forty miles wide, while the length or depth
was unknown. An old buffalo hunter loves nothing better than to talk of
the wonderful old times. One of the oldest living ranchmen still has a
private herd near Amarillo and has made many experiments in breeding the
bulls to domestic Galloway cows. The progeny, which he calls cattalo,
make excellent beef, and he gets a very big price for the hides as
robes.

CHAPTER VIII

ODDS AND ENDS

The "Staked Plains"--High Winds--Lobo Wolves--Branding--Cows--Black
Jack--Lightning and Hail--Classing Cattle--Conventions--"Cutting"
versus Polo--Bull-Fight--Prize-Fights--River and Sea
Fishing--Sharks.

More odds and ends! and more apologies for the disconnected character of
this chapter. It must be remembered that these notes are only jotted
down as they have occurred to me. Of their irrelativeness one to another
I am quite conscious, but the art of bringing them together in more
proper order is beyond my capacity. Possibly it might not be advisable
anyway.

In my pasture of some 100,000 acres there was not a tree, a bush, or a