eviously mentioned. Two thousand head of half-wild
Texan cattle are scattered in herds throughout the canyons, living on
more or less suspicious terms with grizzly and brown bears, mountain
lions, elk, mountain sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats,
beavers, minks, skunks, chipmunks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the
other two-legged, four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants
of this lonely and romantic region. On the whole, they show a tendency
rather to the habits of wild than of domestic cattle. They march to
water in Indian file, with the bulls leading, and when threatened, take
strategic advantage of ridgy ground, slinking warily along in the
hollows, the bulls acting as sentinels, and bringing up the rear in
case of an attack from dogs. Cows have to be regularly broken in for
milking, being as wild as buffaloes in their unbroken state; but, owing
to the comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing
the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows does
not produce as much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty. Some
"necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business, however
humane he may be. The system is one of terrorism, and from the time
that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and the hot iron burns
into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the fatted ox is driven down
from his boundless pastures to be slaughtered in Chicago, "the fear and
dread of man" are upon him.

The herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down from
the Snowy Range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up and starved,
and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out and drive them down
to the "park." On this occasion, the whole were driven down for a
muster, and for the purpose of branding the calves.

After a 6:30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being
composed of my host, a hunter from the Snowy Range, two stockmen from
the Plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was said by his
comrade to be the "best rider in North Americay," and myself. We were
all mounted on Mexican saddles, rode, as the custom is, with light
snaffle bridles, leather guards over our feet, and broad wooden
stirrups, and each carried his lunch in a pouch slung on the lassoing
horn of his saddle. Four big, badly-trained dogs accompanied us. It
was a ride of nearly thirty miles, and of many hours, one of the most
splendid I ever took. We never got