food start pitching that hey cowboy i don't any heard come spring you think a cowboy life is romantic just try it in winter some oh i know i had a lot of fine fancy ideas about cowboys myself when i first came out here last spring to do a picture story about them for a magazine i was being met by a fellow name found myself thinking he doesn't look like any car boy i ever saw more like businessman or maybe a gentleman right through me as we drove i said i don't know what kind of a story you aim to do about cowboys but over the old wild west stuff i'm afraid you're not going to find it around here he was right we drove through gunnison and it turned out that way strictly modern and so is the highway that led to the ranch owns one of the finest branches in the area and as we drove up i saw a cottonwood tree that looked pretty much like any well to do farm all buildings and knew the ranch was homesteaded by gus is grand for each generation is build it up a little more gus introduced me to a couple of his right hand man and i began to change my idea of how a cowboy really look we walked around looking the place it's smaller than i thought it would be only a few hundred acres of meadowland but gus told me that's all you need out here because the cattle are moved to government owned ranges as the seasons change depending on where the pasture is best at that time of year while we were talking up road a fellow looked more like my dear the real cowboy first person i ding on a horse since i came west but it turned out to be tony befana which of course no real cowboy named and when i saw him roll a cigarette with both hands instead of one i was really sad gus wanted me to go for a ride around the ranch and there was no way i could get out of it i put on my brand new blues and went out like a deer going to slaughter a horse is a noble animal too high off the ground you fall off a horse it's like falling out of a second story window this was they had picked for me was just a little short of three stories take it easy guys said she's a little nervous she's got nothing on me i told him i just made it to the saddle and when i looked down at the ground i wished i was back in detroit the horses walked for a while and gus told me how gunnison lies just west of the great divide in the heart of the rocky mountain then my horse began to trot and i was too busy hanging on to listen then we stopped and i had my first good look around the range sort of took my breath away and then fly with the wind whispering in the grass in the mountain peaks cowering against this guy way cattle still have to be branded as a precaution against getting lost in sprayed or stone the brand is the owner's identification  discovered  god set a cap of his own in the ground that morning his son learning the business of the fourth generation it was rough hard work but gus was right in there sweating it out with the other co it didn't take long for them to wash up and fall in for chow at gus's ranch a cowboy eats well this is rovers and has charge of the food and the man takes away all he can carry without a wheelbarrow for a while the only sound was the chopping of jobs a cow boy has too much energy to sit still for long because there's nothing else to do he'll start a rough house a cowboy's every day chores keeping plenty busy he's a jack of all trey besides being nursemaid to the pedigreed stock yes you know how to be a blacksmith and hugh is own horse when something needs to be build or repair he turns carpenter is an expert at grooming a prize bull for a show he can milk a cow as well as any farm hand in springtime is out there in rubber boots with a shovel digging irrigation ditches about the same cattle will follow like sheep so the cowboys pick a ball in the couple of cows who know the way and use them as leaders with this advance group goes the trail boss and the main herd follow the dogs help keep the herd moving i thought they must be specially trained but the boy said no they just like to do it no one taught the other i was right  by now my horse was going his own gait and mighty rough it was too i wondered how many cattle we had left behind in the woods i was amazed to find out that we hadn't lost a single head on the drive so far and that such a thing rarely happened the trail wasn't always straight up but slowly we were gaining  e it takes two to three days to reach the top and the cowboys never push the herd because they don't want the cattle to lose weight progress may be slow but there's never a dull minute cattle or contrary beat one may suddenly break and run for the nearest cliff and have to be driven back before a fall who killed himself finally the long drive came to an end the cattle stood grazing quietly the men and saddled their horses even the dogs rested and where was i a mile and a half behind my horse and i had reached a mutual understanding i was to walk he was to carry the saddle and no charges would be brought by either party i took quite a getting from the boys when i arrived but i was so glad to sit down i didn't care we were twelve thousand feet up and it got cold that night we needed the camp fire and plenty of hot coffee to keep warm and as we sat there i got the strange feeling that time would move backwards and that all this was happening hundred years ago