Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-10-16
LIFE ON A BIG RANCH
In The Texas Panhandle in the
Seventies.
DUTIES, MEANS AND METHODS,
Sign Camps-worklnu The Ranse-Up The
Trail-Aboul "Swealers"-The "Floal.
ing ouIhp'-LOng Horn Versus
Short Horn Methods.
Copyright
TAscosA, TEX, Oct. II, 1892.


TAsCosA, TEX, Oct. II, 1892,
This is the story OF years round of
life on big Panhandle cattle ranch,
before the days OF fences, as my friend,
the eX-cattleman, told IL to me:
say big ranchn not because the
proprletors owned a lot OF land, for
those were the days Of free grass and
no fences, but because the brand num-
bered $1,000 or $4,000 cattle and they
gra1ed over big range.
These big ranches were generally
the property Of non-residents, COM
panies or individuals, and the perma-
nent household at headquarters usually
consisted OF the bookkeeper, manager
and cook, with a couple OF outside men.
Sometimes there was a wife, and a
child or two, but more often the whole
establishment was masculine.
In cow-puncher vcrracular the
Headquarters house was the white
house, the boys quarters, "the log
house,
Through the busy season there void
be from fifty 10 seventy-hve men en-
ployed-that Is from the opening 4
spring till the very last beeyos wert
gathered and shipped-or sent up the
tralln In the late fall.
The lrst thing in the spring was to
20 to the winter horse camp and get
out the horses old hand his own
mount Of six or eight, unless there was
q new boss who made n new and arbi-
trnry divide and the other horses dis
tributed among the new mon-olean
them up, get the cookie burrs out of
their tails, and not uncommonly break
them over, This was q sort OF frolic,
the rafting prelude TO the summers
work. Immediately the horses We're
parcelled ont and In order we went out
on the range 10 gather beeves lin this
| country beeves aro animals intended
| for beof, not stock CATTLE and beef is
an animal fat aud ready for the markot)
to 20 to the Indian Territory. The
| climate thera Is molster than on these
| plains, and the grass comes sooner; by
getting our beeyes up there We had
them iattening, and also relieved our
own range so much, leaving IL for the
COWS and calves.
Another advantage TO these beeves
In these Indian Territory pastures was
that they were not continually worked,
"choused roundh and worried as they
would have been on the range during
the whole season OF rounding up
branding, etc.
Good, steady, reliable sort Of fellows
were put In charge OF these trail herds
there was a certain difference between
them and the keen, live, hustling mei
selected TO work the range at HON,
and all over tho Northern Panhandle
always little feeling on hand and
good deal OF more or less good nature'
chat.
WORKING THE RANGE.
The range men were divided ant
went east and west 10 tho Adob,
Walls roundup in the Eastern Pan
handle, and old Fort Bascom roundup
Ia New Mexico, gathering cattle Q
our brand, the Two roundups working
toward each other till they finally me
at Tascosa, which was then the cente
and headquarters OF Panhandle cal
tledom, and about a halfway point be
tween tho respective starting places G
the two roundups. At the first meet
ing Of the spring roundups the bigges
part Of the calf branding for the yea
was done, though the range wa
worked over again aud yet again b
fall, when the trail OUTFITS would b
back and receive the final collection q
beeves for the season, and start north
word with them.
SIGN CAMPS
} In the meantime, slmultaneousl
I ~ a a. a. aN