"Wild music makes the wind on silver strings."
A fresh breeze blew, not forcibly, but coolly and merrily, forming, one could almost fancy, the song of the world, as it grappled light-heartedly with its day's work. In the pale blue, far-off sky the sun shone brightly, and translucent cloud formations, of delicate texture, floated out like woman's hair on the sea of light, crossed and recrossed by one another as they lay in transverse currents of air at different altitudes. In the clear sunny atmosphere of the New Mexican winter, everything looked near and shone vividly; distance seemed to magnify rather than reduce in size the well-conditioned cattle that our quick-stepping ponies bore us past. And as we rode, keeping a sharp look-out for unbranded calves, that had been dropped since the fall "round up," or had then been overlooked, Murray (a one-idea man, whose heart and soul were wrapped up in cattle, and whose gods were the cattle-kings of California, "Dan Murphy, Haggin, Lux, and Miller, and them fellows,") held forth, as usual, on his favourite subject.
"There's lots of things to look to in choosing a range," he said. "There's some ranges that you couldn't hold cattle on, not if you had a man to every head of stock. They won't stay there; they'll keep on straying away. The grass don't suit 'em, or the water don't taste right, or there ain't 'nough shelter, or something—you can't always tell what is the matter exactly. Fact is, you want good grass, and good water, and good shelter too, if you can get 'em. And you don't want your water all in one place either, or you'll soon find your grass at one end of the ranch and your water at the other; and when cattle have to travel eight or ten miles back and forth, they're going to be in pretty poor fix[28] all the time. You want the water well distributed—a spring here, and a spring there, and a creek or a cienega somewheres else. When you've got that kind of a range, you won't have no trouble holding your stock, they'll stay right there. I could handle 20,000 head of cattle in this valley with eight men. To be sure, our stock is pretty well corralled here by the hills, but all the same they don't want to quit. There's ways out of the valley, and they'd find 'em sure 'nough if they did. Why! last round up, over in San Simon Valley, there was only one of our steers there, and that was one that got driven off with a bunch of strays which the San Simon boys was taking back.
"It's a great thing to get a range that's isolated, and have your cattle by themselves. One thing is that you want your cattle gentle and in good condition, and when there's half-a-dozen bands mixed in together they don't get no peace; there's always some one in among 'em, 'cutting out' cattle, and running 'em round, and likely enough handling 'em, too, in a style you don't approve of. Another thing is that, when you're off by yourself, it encourages you to go to the expense of turning in good bulls, and grading up your stock, which you ain't nearly so liable to do if your cows and your neighbours' run in together.
"I'm all for grading up cattle. Look at it! Graded cattle are more valuable, ain't they? And they're gentler and easier to handle, so you work your capital at a less expense than if you run scrubs. Besides this, there's a larger percentage of increase to them than there is to scrubs. They always command a sale, and at a fair price too, even when cattle are way down in the market, like they are at present; and on a fair range they're always in condition. You can't never get these wild scrub cattle into condition anyhow; they run all the flesh off their bones. Why, some of these here black cattle from Mexico, if they see a cow-boy a mile off, will 'light out and run four miles; they graze at a lope, and water at full gallop.
"Buy your stock right in this country, if you settle here; never mind if it costs you more. You may go away down into Texas or Mexico and buy scrubs cheaper; but see here, now! one of these graded yearlings will outweigh one of them two-year-olds. Then, again, this is by far the finest breeding-ground in the States; from eighty to ninety-five per cent. of the cows here will drop calves every season; the climate suits 'em. They're lucky if they get a forty per cent. increase up in Montana. When you bring cattle from a distance, too, some of 'em is sure to die on the road; and more'll die before they get wonted to the range; and no matter how fine a range you turn 'em on to, it'll take a long time for 'em to find their condition again after a change of country. Then very likely half the cows you bring from a distance ain't been served, and many of them as has calves loses 'em on the trail. In the long run you'll always find it pay to buy cattle that you know something about, and buy 'em pretty near home, too.
"Spring's the best time to buy stock. Turn 'em on to your range when the grass is green and there's plenty of it; they get stuck on it[29] then and stop there, you don't have no trouble locating 'em. But you bring 'em in in summer, when everything is burnt up, and they'll drift off a thousand miles; and if you bring 'em in in the fall, even if the grass has recovered a bit, they haven't time to pick up after the change before winter sets in. Not that that matters so much here, where the winter don't amount to anything; but there's places where it does; and if they struck a bad season then they'd die like flies.
"You want to look at everything in a business way. You don't keep a ranch for fun. You want the cattle that's easiest handled, and easiest sold, and that matures quickest and keeps in best condition. And you want to get the most work you can out of your horses, and to place your men on the outside of your range so that all their riding tells, and they cover the greatest possible stretch of country. And you want to work your stock slowly. Don't you never have none of these hell-tearing rustlers from Texas on your ranch, if you get one. It don't pay to have fellows blazing off their revolvers, and stampeding the cattle, and spurring their horses on the shoulders, and always going on a lope, and driving cattle at a lope too, and lassing steers by the fore-feet on the trail, and throwing 'em head over heels, just for the satisfaction of hearing the thud they make when they fall. That kind of monkey business is played out! There ain't no object in wearing out your horses and giving 'em raw backs; and as to cattle, if you want 'em in good condition—that is, so any one will buy 'em—you never should let 'em out of a walk. You run a steer a mile or so, and lass and throw him for fun, and the flesh he loses afterwards would hardly be credited. Well, that's so much money out of your pocket, if you want to sell him. And you have a horse with a sore back for a month or two, and you can reckon that loss in money, too. Work stock slowly, and save your horses when you can, that's all there is to it, if you want to make money ranching."
Murray would ramble on like this by the hour, seldom repeating himself. Many were the rides we took together, but never returned from one without his having broached a fresh chapter on the habits and management of cattle. It is useless to retail these dissertations, however; such information is only used when gathered by experience—fortunately the case with all useful knowledge, or by this time the world would have grown wise and infinitely dull.
We had ridden over a good stretch of country in the direction of the Baker Place (the old man occasionally marking down an unbranded calf, to be picked up on our return), when we became aware of a few white dots amongst some live-oak, on the edge of a slope which led down into a large draw. "Antelope!" I ejaculated. Murray nodded silently. We had reined in our ponies on some rising ground, the summit of which we had scarcely attained. The game was about a mile off.