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“My Lord, Jed,” says Buck to me, “they’s a heap of these youngsters comin’ over our way.”

But still, as a young critter is more apt to stray than an old one that’s got his range established, we didn’t lay no great store by that neither. The Hahns took their bunch, and that’s all there was to it.

Next spring, though, we found a few more sleepers, and one day we came on a cow that had gone dead lame. That was usual, too, but Buck, who was with me, had somethin’ on his mind. Finally he turned back and roped her, and threw her.

“Look here, Jed,” says he, “what do you make of this?”

I could see where the hind legs below the hocks had been burned.

“Looks like somebody had roped her by the hind feet,” says I.

“Might be,” says he, “but her heels lame that way makes it look more like hobbles.”

So we didn’t say nothin’ more about that neither, until just by luck we came on another lame cow. We threw her, too.

“Well, what do you think of this one?” Buck Johnson asks me.

“The feet is pretty well tore up,” says I, “and down to the quick, but I’ve seen them tore up just as bad on the rocks when they come down out of the mountains.”

You sabe what that meant, don’t you? You see, a rustler will take a cow and hobble her, or lame her so she can’t follow, and then he’ll take her calf a long ways off and brand it with his iron. Of course, if we was to see a calf of one brand followin’ of a cow with another, it would be just too easy to guess what had happened.

We rode on mighty thoughtful. There couldn’t be much doubt that cattle rustlers was at work. The sleepers they had ear-marked, hopin’ that no one would discover the lack of a brand. Then, after the calf was weaned, and quit followin’ of his mother, the rustler would brand it with his own iron, and change its ear-mark to match. It made a nice, easy way of gettin’ together a bunch of cattle cheap.

But it was pretty hard to guess off-hand who the rustlers might be. There were a lot of renegades down towards the Mexican line who made a raid once in a while, and a few oilers [1] livin’ near had water holes in the foothills, and any amount of little cattle holders, like this T 0 outfit, and any of them wouldn’t shy very hard at a little sleeperin’ on the side. Buck Johnson told us all to watch out, and passed the word quiet among the big owners to try and see whose cattle seemed to have too many calves for the number of cows.

Footnote: [1] “Oilers”–Greasers–Mexicans.

The Texas outfit I’m tellin’ you about had settled up above in this Double R canon where I showed you those natural corrals this morning. They’d built them a ‘dobe, and cleared some land, and planted a few trees, and made an irrigated patch for alfalfa. Nobody never rode over this way very much, ’cause the country was most too rough for cattle, and our ranges lay farther to the southward. Now, however, we began to extend our ridin’ a little.

I was down towards Dos Cabesas to look over the cattle there, and they used to send Larry up into the Double R country. One evenin’ he took me to one side.

“Look here, Jed,” says he, “I know you pretty well, and I’m not ashamed to say that I’m all new at this cattle business–in fact, I haven’t been at it more’n a year. What should be the proportion of cows to calves anyhow?”

“There ought to be about twice as many cows as there’re calves,” I tells him.