“Huh! you’d stop for that big buffalo, all right, all right, if you saw him.”
“I expect I would,” admitted his chum. “Wouldn’t you?”
“If I ever see a buffalo—Say, Chet! why do they call them ‘mavericks’?”
“They don’t.”
“What d’you mean, they don’t? Of course they do. Unbranded calves—”
“Oh!” chuckled Chet. “You got me twisted. I thought you meant the buffaloes.”
“Oh! Don’t be funny.”
“Why, mavericks are unbranded cattle—usually yearlings. Called such, so I’ve read, because a certain cattleman in Texas, named Colonel Maverick, refused to brand his cattle. All the other cattle owners did, so Maverick claimed all unbranded stock.”
“Oh!”
“It was a sharp trick, you see,” Chet said. “He gathered in lots of cattle that way. Cowpunchers made a joke of it at first. They called every stray and unbranded beast a ‘maverick.’ The name stuck.”