The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-04


 tain. His word is law in the outfit
 Every day punches of cattle are urivel
 in from the range and shut in the mov
 able corral. There is seldom any rop
 ing and lariat throwing as of old
 That may injure a calf or COW ant
 take away half it's value.
 The writer saw recently one of thes,
 busness-like outfits at work on the Az
 tee Cattle company's range in Navajo
 county. There was none of the Wilt
 yelling and whooping of the cowboys
 of decade ago as the punches of cat
 tie were driven. Indeed, not one of the
 cowboys wore the regulation buckskir
 suit and carried brace of pistols a
 his waist as of yore. Hardly a persor
 in the whole outfit spoke. It was all a
 hard headed business proposition fol
 every man. The boss rode slowly
 about, seeing that no time was lost and
 no animal was misused so as to dam ,age it's worth as beef. The cows and
 calves were separated by the cowboys
 on horses and were driven into differ
 ent corrals. From each corral a mar
 row passageway of boards led to a still
 narrower arrangement, that at a dis
 tance resembled an old horse power.
 This was the branding-box Several
 men were in the corral with long, blunt
 poles, and by punching and beating
 they drove the cows and calves in sin
 gle file through the passageway At the farther end the animals, one by one,
 were forced into the brandingbox. ] A man stood without and at one side with a long wooden lever in his hands.
 He watched the cattle as they emerged into the box When each animal was well in he suddenly pushed the lever down, the movable side of the box closed in upon the beast, and it was a trice the brander snatched one of the several branding-irons from the fire and ran and pressed the heated end against the palpitating side of the animal. Smoke arose and there was a smell of burning hair The beast gave con- vulsive outcry, but the man at the lev CT pressed hard down and the animal could not move. The brand was re- moved. A huge "A C." was charred ! in the hair and flesh. The lever was raised and the box was widened. The poorsbrute darted out into another cor ral, as if fearful the burnt flesh would touch something.
 The boss of the outfit said that by working two branding boxes five hun dred cattle could be branded in a day. There have been over four hundred branded in day by the use of but one box. Twice a year--in spring and fall-the animals are corraled on up-to- date ranges. Tn the fall beef cattle are separated and calves that have been 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 mavericks to other cattlemen.
 Cowboys are these days hired quite as much for memory and business sense as their ability to endure long days of rough driving. to drive bunch of cat tie rapidly and safely, and to check stampedes of hundreds of snorting, ca vorting steers.
 In this day of specialists there has been evoluted class of cowboy spec ialists. Now the cowboys who know hundreds of branding heroglyphics on cattle's furry sides, have the best pay. The Aztec Cattle company has fourteen of what are known as first-elass cow boys. They draw ten dollars a month more than the others. Some of them go east with every trainload of cattle Several of them know at a glance the owner of every critter among the thou sands of cattle bearing over four hun dred different brands in the stockyards at Chicago or Kansas City. One young fellow, a Scotchman, knows the brands of about eight hundred different firms end individuals in the southwest. These brands are of all conceivable shapes and sizes. ranging from single letter to the size of a pos tai card to full-length and mommoth stripes on the poor beasts backs over eight thousand separate and distinct brands of cattle are regis tered at the stockyards in Chicago.
 When cattleman or company in the territories ships cattle to market a cow boy must go along to see that the ani- mas are Watered and fed two or three times a day en route. The laws de- nand that every twenty-four hours en route the beasts be freed from their ! close confinement and rested in cattle yard at some railroad station. On the | Santa Fe railroad the rest stations are 1t Albuquerque, N. M., La Junta, Col, | Dodge City and Newton, Kan, and at | Kansas City, Mo- Often as many as seven thousand cattle are on the way It one time on a single railroad in the vest, and as many as fifty different brands of cattle are represented on train. Often frisking steer or a COW leaps or bounds from it's mates in the transfer to and from the f ,ars The work of loading and unload ng of cattle must be done rapidly, so there is some mixing of cattle bearing 0 market.
 When the brutes reach the great stock-yards at Kansas City or Chicago, thousands of other cattle are there. More mix-ups of impetuous animals happen daily. When the sale takes ,lace day or so later, the stock yard employees and the cowboys who have brought the animals there each keep ally of the head of cattle bearing the 'rands as they pass out of the chute Then it is that a consignment of steers 1T cows may be short or over a few The animals are always restive and of en run madly about as they are driven ut through a gantlet for the buyer The expert cowboy must know at a lance the brand on each of the ani- o3 Is 6I1rryino mast or 1a rtiJ,u hare l