lley? It's the round-up. The boys are
there, and the cattle. Wait, I'll get the glasses."

By their aid Madeline saw in the foreground a great, dense herd of
cattle with dark, thick streams and dotted lines of cattle leading in
every direction. She saw streaks and clouds of dust, running horses, and
a band of horses grazing; and she descried horsemen standing still like
sentinels, and others in action.

"The round-up! I want to know all about it--to see it," declared
Madeline. "Please tell me what it means, what it's for, and then take me
down there."

"It's sure a sight, Miss Hammond. I'll be glad to take you down, but I
fancy you'll not want to go close. Few Eastern people who regularly eat
their choice cuts of roast beef and porterhouse have any idea of the
open range and the struggle cattle have to live and the hard life of
cowboys. It'll sure open your eyes, Miss Hammond. I'm glad you care to
know. Your brother would have made a big success in this cattle business
if it hadn't been for crooked work by rival ranchers. He'll make it yet,
in spite of them."

"Indeed he shall," replied Madeline. "But tell me, please, all about the
round-up."

"Well, in the first place, every cattleman has to have a brand to
identify his stock. Without it no cattleman, nor half a hundred cowboys,
if he had so many, could ever recognize all the cattle in a big herd.
There are no fences on our ranges. They are all open to everybody. Some
day I hope we'll be rich enough to fence a range. The different herds
graze together. Every calf has to be caught, if possible, and branded
with the mark of its mother. That's no easy job. A maverick is an
unbranded calf that has been weaned and shifts for itself. The maverick
then belongs to the man who finds it and brands it. These little calves
that lose their mothers sure have a cruel time of it. Many of them die.
Then the coyotes and wolves and lions prey on them. Every year we have
two big round-ups, but the boys do some branding all the year. A calf
should be branded as soon as it's found. This is a safeguard against
cattle-thieves. We don't have the rustling of herds and bunches of
cattle like we used to. But there's always the calf-thief, and always
will be as long as there's cattle-raising. The thieves have a good many
cunning tricks. They kill the calf's mother or slit the calf's tongue
so it can't suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a calf
and watch it till it's big enough