"Wa-al, Johnny, I sure would never have thought it of you!"
He said nothing more, except to ask me to twist him a cigarette or two, and when we reached Tucson I turned him over safely to Sheriff Paul.
You who read this in your stuffy city room, or crowded subway seat, imagine, if you can, the following scene:
Above, the perfect, all-embracing blue of the Arizona sky; set flaming in the middle of it the sun, a glorious blazing orb whose beauty one may dare to gaze upon only through smoked glasses; beneath, the Range, which, far from being a desert, is covered with a growth of grass which grows thicker and greener as the rivers' banks are reached.
All around, Arizona—the painted hills, looking as though someone had carefully swept them early in the morning with a broom; the valleys studded with mesquite trees and greasewood and dotted here and there with brown specks which even the uninitiated will know are cattle, and the river, one of Arizona's minor streams, a few yards across and only a couple of feet deep, but swift-rushing, pebble-strew'd and clear as crystal.
Last, but not least, a heterogeneous mob of cowboys and vaqueros, with their horses champing at the bit and eager to be off on their work. In the foreground a rough, unpainted corral, where are more ponies—wicked-looking, intelligent little beggars, but quick turning as though they owned but two legs instead of four, and hence priceless for the work of the roundup. In the distance, some of them quietly and impudently grazing quite close at hand, are the cattle, the object of the day's gathering.
Cowboys from perhaps a dozen or more ranches are gathered here, for this is the commencement of the Rodeo—the roundup of cattle that takes place semi-annually. Even ranches whose cattle are not grazed on this particular range have representatives here, for often there are strays with brands that show them to have traveled many scores of miles. The business of the cowboys[3] is to round up and corral the cattle and pick out their own brands from the herd. They then see that the unbranded calves belonging to cows of their brand are properly marked with the hot iron and with the ear-slit, check up the number of yearlings for the benefit of their employers, and take charge of such of the cattle it is considered advisable to drive back to the home ranch.
So much sentimental nonsense has been talked of the cruelty of branding and slitting calves that it is worth while here, perhaps, to state positively that the branding irons do not penetrate the skin and serve simply to burn the roots of the hair so that the bald marks will show to which ranch the calf belongs. There is little pain to the calf attached to the operation, and one rarely if ever even sees a calf licking its brand after it has been applied; and, as is well known, the cow's remedy for an injury, like that of a dog, is always to lick it. As to the ear-slitting, used by most ranches as a check on their brands, it may be said that if the human ear is somewhat callous to pain—as it is—the cow's ear is even more so. One may slice a cow's ear in half in a certain way and she will feel only slight pain, not sufficient to make her give voice. The slitting of a cow's ear draws very little blood.
While I am on the subject,—it was amusing to note the unbounded astonishment of the cattlemen of Arizona a few years ago when some altruistic society of Boston came forward with a brilliant idea that was to abolish the cruelty of branding cows entirely. What was the idea? Oh, they were going to hang a collar around the cow's neck, with a brass tag on it to tell the name of the owner. Or, if that wasn't feasible, they thought that a simple ring and tag put through the cow's ear-lobe would prove eminently satisfactory! The feelings of the cowboys, when told that they would be required to dismount from their horses, walk up to each cow in turn and politely examine her tag, perhaps with the aid of spectacles, may be better imagined than described. It is sufficient to say that the New England society's idea never got further than Massachusetts, if it was, indeed, used there, which is doubtful.