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A clear, licking little fire danced in the blackness. Before it moved silhouettes of men already eating. I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing his men for the day. Three were to care for the remuda; five were to move the stray-herd from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews were told to brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoon before.
Two days after this I joined one of the roundup camps at sunset. They had been working from Salt Creek to Bear Creek, and the Taylor ranch was in visiting distance from them again, after an interval of gathering and branding far across the country. The Virginian, the gentle-voiced Southerner, whom I had last seen lingering with Miss Wood, was in camp.
Now and then he Talked in his Sleep, and she caught Expressions in regard to Branding him on the Other Leg or putting him back into the Coffin, and her Curiosity was intensified. One day she read in a Veracious Newspaper that if the Left Hand of a Sleeping Person be immersed in Tepid Water, then the Sleeper will truthfully answer any Question that may be asked.
Somehow, as she passed out of the house, the very sunlight seemed to rejoice with her; the old familiar buildings had something friendly in their bald, unyielding aspect. Even the hideous corrals looked less like the prisons they were, and the branding forges less cruel. But greatest wonder of all was the attitude of Jake when she put her request before him.
It was an act of infamy, branding him for ever. Thoughts such as these intermingled with his reading of the Psalms of penitence. Ever and again grief overwhelmed him, and he wept bitterly.
Then they consider the question of a whale round-up in an expert manner. It don't look none too good, going out on rodeo in water about three miles too deep for wading, though the idea of lass'ing a whale calf and branding it does hold a certain fascination.
The Mexicans, who were all experienced in throwing the lasso, would go into the corral on horseback, with their lassos attached to the pommels of their saddles. Soldiers detailed as teamsters and black smiths would also enter the corral, the former with ropes to serve as halters, the latter with branding irons and a fire to keep the irons heated.
Conventional morality, while sometimes over-severe against old and well-recognized sins, lags far behind in its branding of the newer forms.
Theoretically, a maverick belongs to the owner of the range on which it runs, but, practically, it becomes the property of the man who first finds and brands it. Although the branding is supposed to be done only during a round-up there is nevertheless some branding done in every month of the year. The ranchman is compelled to do so to save his calves from being stolen.
After our return to the Frio, my first duty was writing, relative to the proposed match, an unfavorable reply to Don Alejandro Travino. On resuming work, we spent six weeks baling hides, thus occupying our time until the beginning of the branding season. A general round-up of the Nueces valley, commencing on the coast at Corpus Christi Bay, had been agreed upon among the cowmen of the country.
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