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Updated: June 3, 2025
On the great ranches of this belt, which, we are told, are fast disappearing, there are two important round-ups of the cattle every year. Between times they roam free over vast areas of land. In the spring they are driven slowly toward a central point. Then the calves are branded, or marked by a hot iron, with the owner's special brand. These brands are registered and are recognized by law.
It was understood that we were to have the assistance of the ranch outfit in holding the cattle, but as they numbered only half a dozen and were miserably mounted, they were of little use except as herders. All the neighboring ranches gave us round-ups, and by the time we reached the home range of the brand I was beginning to get uneasy on account of the numbers under herd.
Midnight mused over his youthful days the dust, the flashing horns, the shouting and the excitement of old round-ups. It is a true telling that thoughts in no way unlike these buzzed in the rider's head as a usual thing. But to-day he had other things to think of.
In summer, excepting during the round-ups, we never had butcher meat, and in my camp butter, eggs and milk were not known; but in winter I always had lots of good beef, potatoes, butter and some eggs from the Mormons, but still no milk. This was varied, too, by wild duck, teal and snipe shot along the river bottom.
In the fall they drove in their cattle and loaded them for Denver at the chutes in the railroad yard. There had been times in the past when Summit ebbed and flowed with a rip-roaring tide of turbulent life. This had been after the round-ups in the golden yesterday when every other store building had been occupied by a saloon and the rattle of chips lasted far into the small hours of night.
In case that line is broken, we can drop down to the railroad and make another attempt to check any drift. And as a last resort, whether we hold the line or not, we'll send an outfit as far south as the Arkansas River, and attend the spring round-ups from there north to the Republican. We have the horses and men, and no one can throw out a wider drag-net than our outfit.
"A wide-awake cowman, in this upper country, always buys these southern horses a year in advance of when he needs them. Next year you'll be running a shipping outfit, mounting a dozen men, sending others on fall round-ups, and if you buy your horses now, you'll have them in the pink of condition then.
In the Devil's Tooth round-ups Duke held his place alongside Al as a top hand, disputing now and then the right of young Lance to compete with him, but never quite daring to bring his dispute to the point where action would take the place of words. "Duke's sure enough a bad man with his face," Tom once snarled to Belle.
"Now, run your eye down that bill of fare and see if it seems to hitch on any of these items." "Lay me on my lava bed!" said Greenbrier, with bulging eyes. "All these specimens of nutriment in the grub wagon! What's this? Horse with the heaves? I pass. But look along! Here's truck for twenty round-ups all spelled out in different directions. Wait till I see."
Lidgerwood smiled in spite of his annoyance, and wondered at what page in the railroad primer he would have to begin in teaching these men of the camps and the round-ups. "But it isn't railroading," he insisted, meeting his first pupil half-way, and as man to man.
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