The Corral Branding

: ARIZONA NIGHTS
: Arizona Nights

All that night we slept like sticks of wood. No dreams visited us, but

in accordance with the immemorial habit of those who live out--whether

in the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or at sea--once

during the night each of us rose on his elbow, looked about him, and

dropped back to sleep. If there had been a fire to replenish, that

would have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing and

the s as rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft for

indications, to feel whether the anchor cable was holding; if the

pack-horses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, this

would have been the occasion for intent listening for the faintly

tinkling hell so that next day one would know in which direction to

look. But since there existed for us no responsibility, we each

reported dutifully at the roll-call of habit, and dropped back into our

blankets with a grateful sigh.



I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently stationary

cloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow lying before distant silvery

mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvases, each of which

concealed a man; the air trembled with the bellowing of cattle in the

corrals.



Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me to

consciousness again. A clear, licking little fire danced in the

blackness. Before it moved silhouettes of men already eating.



I piled out and joined the group. Homer was busy distributing his men

for the day. Three were to care for the remuda; five were to move the

stray-herd from the corrals to good feed; three branding crews were

told to brand the calves we had collected in the cut of the afternoon

before. That took up about half the men. The rest were to make a

short drive in the salt grass. I joined the Cattleman, and together we

made our way afoot to the branding pen.



We were the only ones who did go afoot, however, although the corrals

were not more than two hundred yards' distant. When we arrived we

found the string of ponies standing around outside. Between the

upright bars of greasewood we could see the cattle, and near the

opposite side the men building a fire next the fence. We pushed open

the wide gate and entered. The three ropers sat their horses, idly

swinging the loops of their ropes back and forth. Three others brought

wood and arranged it craftily in such manner as to get best draught for

heatin,--a good branding fire is most decidedly a work of art. One

stood waiting for them to finish, a sheaf of long JH stamping irons in

his hand. All the rest squatted on their heels along the fence,

smoking cigarettes and chatting together. The first rays of the sun

slanted across in one great sweep from the remote mountains.



In ten minutes Charley pronounced the irons ready. Homer, Wooden, and

old California John rode in among the cattle. The rest of the men

arose and stretched their legs and advanced. The Cattleman and I

climbed to the top bar of the gate, where we roosted, he with his

tally-book on his knee.



Each rider swung his rope above his head with one hand, keeping the

broad loop open by a skilful turn of the wrist at the end of each

revolution. In a moment Homer leaned forward and threw. As the loop

settled, he jerked sharply upward, exactly as one would strike to hook

a big fish. This tightened the loop and prevented it from slipping

off. Immediately, and without waiting to ascertain the result of the

manoeuvre, the horse turned and began methodically, without undue

haste, to walk toward the branding fire. Homer wrapped the rope twice

or thrice about the horn, and sat over in one stirrup to avoid the

tightened line and to preserve the balance. Nobody paid any attention

to the calf. The critter had been caught by the two hind legs. As the

rope tightened, he was suddenly upset, and before he could realise that

something disagreeable was happening, he was sliding majestically along

on his belly. Behind him followed his anxious mother, her head

swinging from side to side.



Near the fire the horse stopped. The two "bull-doggers" immediately

pounced upon the victim. It was promptly flopped over on its right

side. One knelt on its head and twisted back its foreleg in a sort of

hammer-lock; the other seized one hind foot, pressed his boot heel

against the other hind leg close to the body, and sat down behind the

animal. Thus the calf was unable to struggle. When once you have had

the wind knocked out of you, or a rib or two broken, you cease to think

this unnecessarily rough. Then one or the other threw off the rope.

Homer rode away, coiling the rope as he went.



"Hot iron!" yelled one of the bull-doggers.



"Marker!" yelled the other.



Immediately two men ran forward. The brander pressed the iron smoothly

against the flank. A smoke and the smell of scorching hair arose.

Perhaps the calf blatted a little as the heat scorched. In a brief

moment it was over. The brand showed cherry, which is the proper

colour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark.



In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work. First, with a

sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear. Then he

nicked out a swallow-tail in the other. The pieces he thrust into his

pocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus check

the Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calves branded.[3] The

bull-dogger let go. The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelled

over by his worried mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk

it over.



It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as to

the extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is to some extent

painful, and could some other method of ready identification be

devised, it might be as well to adopt it in preference. But in the

circumstance of a free range, thousands of cattle, and hundreds of

owners, any other method is out of the question. I remember a New

England movement looking toward small brass tags to be hung from the

ear. Inextinguishable laughter followed the spread of this doctrine

through Arizona. Imagine a puncher descending to examine politely the

ear-tags of wild cattle on the open range or in a round-up.



But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and ear-marking

are not so painful as one might suppose. The scorching hardly

penetrates below the outer tough skin--only enough to kill the roots of

the hair--besides which it must be remembered that cattle are not so

sensitive as the higher nervous organisms. A calf usually bellows when

the iron bites, but as soon as released he almost invariably goes to

feeding or to looking idly about. Indeed, I have never seen one even

take the trouble to lick his wounds, which is certainly not true in the

case of the injuries they inflict on each other in fighting. Besides

which, it happens but once in a lifetime, and is over in ten seconds; a

comfort denied to those of us who have our teeth filled.



In the meantime two other calves had been roped by the two other men.

One of the little animals was but a few months old, so the rider did

not bother with its hind legs, but tossed his loop over its neck.

Naturally, when things tightened up, Mr. Calf entered his objections,

which took the form of most vigorous bawlings, and the most comical

bucking, pitching, cavorting, and bounding in the air. Mr. Frost's

bull-calf alone in pictorial history shows the attitudes. And then, of

course, there was the gorgeous contrast between all this frantic and

uncomprehending excitement and the absolute matter-of-fact

imperturbability of horse and rider. Once at the fire, one of the men

seized the tightened rope in one hand, reached well over the animal's

back to get a slack of the loose hide next the belly, lifted strongly,

and tripped. This is called "bull-dogging." As he knew his business,

and as the calf was a small one, the little beast went over promptly,

bit the ground with a whack, and was pounced upon and held.



Such good luck did not always follow, however. An occasional and

exceedingly husky bull yearling declined to be upset in any such

manner. He would catch himself on one foot, scramble vigorously, and

end by struggling back to the upright. Then ten to one he made a dash

to get away. In such case he was generally snubbed up short enough at

the end of the rope; but once or twice he succeeded in running around a

group absorbed in branding. You can imagine what happened next. The

rope, attached at one end to a conscientious and immovable horse and at

the other to a reckless and vigorous little bull, swept its taut and

destroying way about mid-knee high across that group. The brander and

marker, who were standing, promptly sat down hard; the bull-doggers,

who were sitting, immediately turned several most capable somersaults;

the other calf arose and inextricably entangled his rope with that of

his accomplice. Hot irons, hot language, and dust filled the air.



Another method, and one requiring slightly more knack, is to grasp the

animal's tail and throw it by a quick jerk across the pressure of the

rope. This is productive of some fun if it fails.



By now the branding was in full swing. The three horses came and went

phlegmatically. When the nooses fell, they turned and walked toward

the fire as a matter of course. Rarely did the cast fail. Men ran to

and fro busy and intent. Sometimes three or four calves were on the

ground at once. Cries arose in a confusion: "Marker" "Hot iron!"

"Tally one!" Dust eddied and dissipated. Behind all were clear

sunlight and the organ roll of the cattle bellowing.



Toward the middle of the morning the bull-doggers began to get a little

tired.



"No more necked calves," they announced. "Catch 'em by the hind legs,

or bull-dog 'em yourself."



And that went. Once in a while the rider, lazy, or careless, or

bothered by the press of numbers, dragged up a victim caught by the

neck. The bull-doggers flatly refused to have anything to do with it.

An obvious way out would have been to flip off the loop and try again;

but of course that would have amounted to a confession of wrong.



"You fellows drive me plumb weary," remarked the rider, slowly

dismounting. "A little bit of a calf like that! What you all need is

a nigger to cut up your food for you!"



Then he would spit on his hands and go at it alone. If luck attended

his first effort, his sarcasm was profound.



"There's yore little calf," said he. "Would you like to have me tote

it to you, or do you reckon you could toddle this far with yore little

old iron?"



But if the calf gave much trouble, then all work ceased while the

unfortunate puncher wrestled it down.



Toward noon the work slacked. Unbranded calves were scarce. Sometimes

the men rode here and there for a minute or so before their eyes fell

on a pair of uncropped ears. Finally Homer rode over to the Cattleman

and reported the branding finished. The latter counted the marks in

his tally-book.



"One hundred and seventy-six," he announced.



The markers, squatted on their heels, told over the bits of ears they

had saved. The total amounted to but an hundred and seventy-five.

Everybody went to searching for the missing bit. It was not

forth-coming. Finally Wooden discovered it in his hip pocket.



"Felt her thar all the time," said he, "but thought it must shorely be

a chaw of tobacco."



This matter satisfactorily adjusted, the men all ran for their ponies.

They had been doing a wrestler's heavy work all the morning, but did

not seem to be tired. I saw once in some crank physical culture

periodical that a cowboy's life was physically ill-balanced, like an

oarsman's, in that it exercised only certain muscles of the body. The

writer should be turned loose in a branding corral.



Through the wide gates the cattle were urged out to the open plain.

There they were held for over an hour while the cows wandered about

looking for their lost progeny. A cow knows her calf by scent and

sound, not by sight. Therefore the noise was deafening, and the motion

incessant.



Finally the last and most foolish cow found the last and most foolish

calf. We turned the herd loose to hunt water and grass at its own

pleasure, and went slowly back to chuck.







[3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note that the

fragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore not bloody.