The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-13

raled on up-to-date ranges. In the
fall the beef cattle are separated from
the herd and calves missed in the
spring are branded. In the spring all
the calves are branded while they
are with the cows. There is
thus less chance of losing NAV
ericks to cattIemen. A maverick by
the way, is a calf that has grown 50
large that it has separated from the
mother-usually when a year old-and
has no brand upon it by which its
owner may be identified. A law of the
ranges is that horses, cattle, hogs or
sheep found unmarked are the ac-
knowledged property of the finder
Hundreds Of cowboys have become
Well-to-dO cattlemen and horsemen by
finding and branding calves and colts
that have wandered away from the
herds and escaped the branding iron.
Many a man. too has been hanged or
shot by angry cattlemen because he was
not over-careful to identify a brand on
steer, a mule or horse in his zeal
to get rich by claiming estrays.
The modern cowboys are these days
hired quite as much for memory and
business sense as for their ability to
endure days of long, rough riding to
drive a bunch of cattle rapidly and
safely, and to check cattle stampedes.
The cowboys do peculiarly interesting
work when they drive a consignment
of cattle to the stockyardS in Kansas
city and Chicago. In this day of Spe-
cialists there has been evolved a class
Of cowboy specialists. Now the cow
boys who know the greatest number of
brands have the best pay. The Aztec
Cattle company has IA of what are
known as first-class cowboys. They
draw SIC month more than the others.
Some of them go east with every train
| load of cattle. Some of them know at q
glance the owner of every animal
among the thousands of cattle bearing
over 400 different brands in the stock
yards at Chicago or Kansas City. One
| young fellow, q Scotchman, knows the
brands of about 800 different firms and
| individuals in the southwest These
/ brands are varied in shape and size,
ranging from single alphabetical let
ter the size of postal card to full
/ length criss-cross stripes on the poor
beasts backs. Some cattlemen have
as many as five letters branded in the
side. Scores of brands are literally
hieroglyphics. Some have Arabic fig
ures and others Roman. A great many
have adopted banjos, dogs, horses,
! hearts, crescents and various geometri-
| cal forms as their brands. Over 500
separate and distinct brands are regis
+ tered at the stockyards in Chicago.
! hen a cattleman or a cattle company
in the territories ships cattle to market
a. cowboy must go along to see that the
animals are watered and fed two or
| three times a day en- route. Improved
cattle cars easily permit this act of hu-
manity, and the United States laws de-
mand it. At every stop of the train the
cowboys get out of the caboose and
with long poles, prod to their feet the
cattle that are on their knees or sides
and likely to be trampled to death. The
laws demand that every "a hours en-
route the beasts shall be freed from
confinement and rested in q cattle yard
at some railroad station. On the Santa
F'e railroad the rest stations are at AL
! buquerque, N. NJ, La Junta, Colo,
/ Dodge City and Newton, Kan, and at
Kansas City, Mo. Often as many as
! 1000 cattle are on the way at one time
on single railroad in the west, and
as many as so different brands Of cattle
are represented on the train. 1t is COM
mon that a frisky steer or vaulting cow
! leaps or bounds from it's mates in the
transfer to and from the cars. The
work of loading and unloading must
| be done rapidly and so there is some
mixing of cattle bearing different
! brands on almost every trip to market
| When the brutes reach the great stock
yards at Kansas City or Chicago, thou
sands of other cattle are there. More
miXups by impetuOus animals follow.
When the sale takes place g, day or so
later the stockyard employees and the
cowboys who have brought the animals
there each keep tally of the head of
cattle bearing the brands as they pass
out of the chute. Then it is that q con-
signment of steers or cows NAV show
d shortage or an excess If the tally