The new day brought further developments. Several fires burned not far from the herd, irons projecting from them. The cattle were again cut out and driven away to a new herd, one by one, but this time they were taken close to the fires, and because of their weight and strength two ropers joined in the efforts of branding each animal. The glowing iron bit deeply through hair and into the skin on the left flank, filling the air with bellowing anguish, surprise, and indignation, and the odors of burning hair and flesh. There were fights, balkings, charges, but the hard-working, hard-riding punchers, the deftly cast ropes, and the trained horses, together with waving hats and an occasional revolver shot close to the nose of refractory, pugnacious bulls, and an occasional waved slicker or coat, won out, and the work proceeded at a good pace in spite of the general and apparent confusion. But whatever aspect of confusion there was, very little really existed except among the victims themselves, for the men proceeded along well-established lines, and the work went on as though it were running in a groove. Horses were changed every hour or two, depending upon the rider's judgment, and the inspectors, with the Triangle foreman, checked off the branded animals as they joined the road-branded herd. This herd grew rapidly and its guards were increased as needed from the ropers and iron men at they became too tired to hold the pace set. All day long the busy scene continued in the dust and the heat of the sun, with a bedlam of noise, an endless weaving and shifting, with lathered horses, sweat-and-dust-grimed riders, shouts of "Hot iron! Hot iron!" "Tally one!" "Ropers up!" and cries of warning and bursts of laughter. It were well that the Double X had sent three men to help; ten would not have been too many. Even with their help there was only one pair of ropers working at the fires and only three cutters-out, the rest being used to hold the two herds of restless cattle; and when night finally put an end to the operations less than half of the trail herd had been branded.