That night about the fire, Donald could not say enough in praise of the work of the cow horses and their seeming understanding of what was required of them; and the others assented to his enthusiastic declaration that a well-broken cow horse is interesting to watch and shows great intelligence in doing its part of the work of handling the cattle. Joe and Vicente, however, said little, but at length in response to some direct appeal Joe said: "Well, boys, there's no denying that these horses know a heap, and that some of 'em do their work mighty well. I expect if it wasn't for the horses there wouldn't be any cattle business; but honest, and without wanting to blow off my country or any other country, you ought to see the horses in the South, whether it's southern California, or Texas. I think maybe they're not always as strong as the mountain horses up here, but they're a whole lot quicker. What's more, it seems to me they understand their work better and do it better; and if that's so, here's one reason for it: The cattle down there are different--at least they used to be in old times, and I reckon they are yet. Most of you know what an old-fashioned Texas long-horn is: mostly head, horns and legs--light, quick on his feet, and a great hand to dodge. Now those Texas horses, and the southern California horses too, have been broke to handle these cattle; and to be any good they've got to be fast, quick to turn and ready to meet any move the steer makes. Up here, you've got a great deal better class of cattle: they're heavier and make better beef, and that means that they're slower--more like barnyard cattle. They don't handle themselves anything like what those Texans do. Texas cattle put the horse and his rider more on their mettle than these grade cattle. They call for greater quickness and readiness; and though I am a Wyoming cowboy now, I'm bound to say that the best cow hands I've ever seen have been down in the South and Southwest." "I guess that's gospel," Hugh said. "I saw something of the cattle business down on the plains when the cattle business was fairly new there, and when all the cattle came up over the trail from Texas, and they certainly did have good cow horses down there. As Joe says, they were quicker, and readier, as it seems to me, than the horses we have up here. Of course that don't mean that they were better horses, but I suppose it does mean that the Texas horses had been, as you might say, just raised on cattle. For generations that was all that they'd been doing and they were quick as a cat on their feet. It's always seemed to me that these mountain horses are much more awkward." "I've never seen those Texas horses," said Powell; "but I didn't suppose that they were nearly as strong as our horses here; and I didn't suppose that they could hold cattle nearly as well."