Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1895-01-17
BRANDING TEXAS STEERS.
HARDEST PIECE OF WORK IN THE
COW BUSINESS.
Duties of the Ropers, Bulldoggers
and Punchers-A Queer Thing
About Brands.

Belcherville, Texas, who certainly has
been at the business long enough to
know what he is talking about, "there
are good many things he has TO do
that haven't much fun in them. Stand
ing guard in the rain or riding around
EN- on a dark night would neither
one be considered q picnic by most
people, but when it comes right down
to sweating and tugging and good old
hard words, [ believe branding beats
any job | ever tackled"
Perhaps the reader may be, as I
was, a little inclined to wonder how
the mere making of marks on cows
hide can involve any really hard man
ual labor; but if he once learns the
details of the process all wonder on
this point will cease. He will learn,
furthermore, that it requires not only
muscular strength, but experience and
courage and brains. The average
hard-working Missouri farmer would
find it about as hard to make sue
cess of branding cattle in Texas as at
building ships in Maine.
OF course, in order to brand cattle
one must have have the proper TOOLS
Branding irons are of two kinds
stamping irons and dotting irons.
The former consists of wrought iron
stamp containing all the characters in
the brand. For instance, if the brand
were Y l L, there would be an iron
stamp composed of these three letters,
with an iron handle running back
from some convenient point, as the
middle of the l. These stamps were
formerly much in use, but have now
become almost completely abandoned,
except among the very largest outfits.
Their place has been taken by the dot
ting irons, which consist merely of q
straight iron rod and half circle
with a long handle attached. With
these two implements any letter in
the alphabet can be made, and an as
tonishingly large variety of other
characters as well. For instance, the
reader can easily understand how the
X L outfit makes its brand by five
applications of the straight rod. "B"
requires one application of the
straight rod and two of the half cir
Gle. This may not make very beau
| tiful b, but it makes one which any
child that knows its letters would be
apt to recognize. If more elaborate
| designs are wanted, the simple dot
ting irons are found sufficient to pro-
duce them. The straight rod is gem
orally about yard long, and has
ring ins the shandle end. The
handle to the half circle is about the
same length. They are generally
heated i'll brisk fire on the open
prairie, though on the large ranches
there is sometimes furnace built es-
pecially for the purpose.
For branding any class of cattle
properly at least four men are re-
quired. OF these four, one is the
roper, two are bulldoggers, and the
fourth is the puncher. AS l am writ
ing in the English language, / take it
for granted that my English-speaking
readers all have a perfectly accurate
idea of what these words mean. OF
course, we all know that roper is one
who ropes. II necessary, one man can
do all the roping required, but two
men do better. The roper throws his
lariat around the neck of some animal
to be branded, and then, by the main
strength of his horse, hauls it up with
in reasonable distance of the fire.
The horse he rides is called the cut
ting horse. He is called the cutting
horse, not because he can cut, but be-
cause he is used in cutting out cattle
from the herd. Some idea of the hard
ness of the work may be derived from
the fact that during the branding sea-
son each roper is allowed from ten to
twelve horses for his own individual
use.
When the roper has driven and
dragged the steer to be branded to the
usual place, he turns him over to the
bulldoggers. These men catch hold
of the animal and hold him while the
puncher applies the hot iron. Does
the reader imagine that he and some
other man like him could tackle big
full-grown Texas steer and hold him
down? Possibly they could if they
knew how, but knowing how is
the trouble. Even one good
able-bodied man can do so if he
can manage to get the right kind of
grip. Usually, when there is only
one bulldogger, he plants his knees
squarely in the fanks of his PROSTATE
victim, passes the animals tail back
between its legs, and grips it firmly
with both hands. 1t might be well
for the reader to remember this the
next time he wants to hold vicious
COW down. The attitude may not be a
very graceful one, but it gives the
man death-like grip on the brute.
The horns may toss vlciously and the
forefeet pound away at q vindictive
rate, but as long as the grip on the
tail holds the hinder quarters stay
close to the ground. 1t is hard on the
COW, but it is also hard on the muscular
strength of the man who does the hold
ing. For this reason the bulldoggers
generally work in pairs. One of them
takes the grip just described, while
the other one grasps n fore hoof of the
animal in each hand, as if in the fervor
of a double handshake. When it is q