ranche. They had heard Hugh addressed as Lightning; but curiosity is not a cow-boy failing, and few had given a thought as to how he had come by the appellation. One or two had asked the question, but Broncho Harry had, the night before his party started to the round-up, said to the others, "Look here, boys. If anyone asks how Lightning Hugh came by his name, don't you give him away. They will larn one of these days, and it will be as good as a theyater when he does that gun trick of his. So keep it dark from the other boys."
The few questions asked, therefore, had been met with a laugh.
"It is a sort of joke of ours," Broncho Harry had said to one of the questioners. "You will see one of these days why it fits him."
Hugh was not sorry when the time came for his outfit to start. They had charge of a herd of eight or nine thousand animals all belonging to the
. It was customary for most of the ranches to drive their own cattle, after a round-up, towards the neighbourhood of their station for the convenience of cutting out the steers that were to be sent down to market, or herds, principally of cows and calves, for purchasers who intended to establish ranches in the still unoccupied territory in New Mexico, Colorado, Dakota, and Montana. Some of these herds would have thousands of miles to travel, and be many months upon the journey. Many of the cow-boys looked forward to taking service with these herds, and trying life under new conditions in the northern territories.
When the beef herds, and such cow herds as the manager of the ranche wished to sell, had been picked out and sent off, the rest of the cattle would be free to wander anywhere they liked over the whole country until they were again swept together for the round-up, unless other sales were effected in the meantime, in which case parties of cow-boys would go out to cut out and drive in the number required. The number of cattle collected at the rounds-up was enormous, many of the ranches owning from forty to eighty thousand cattle. A considerable number were not driven in at the round-up, as the greater portion of the beef-cattle, which had already been branded, were cut out and left behind by the various outfits, and only the cows and calves, with a few bulls to serve as leaders, were driven in. Nevertheless, at these great rounds-up in Texas, the number of the animals collected mounted up to between two and three hundred thousand.
Two-thirds of the work was over when No. 2 outfit of the