"Mebby you don't know it, but a lot of mavericks means, generally, a lazy outfit, not to say nothin' worse. An' when a ranch reckons it's fenced off by natural barriers from other herds, that don't excuse 'em. A dishonest foreman or outfit, or a couple of dishonest men in it, can get rich with mavericks, if they know their business, an' don't work too hard. An' if th' whole outfit is dishonest an' workin' for its ranch, mavericks belongin' to surroundin' ranches are awful temptations. "Now, th' SV don't earnotch its calves. They don't have no sleepers, at all; an' I know that calves will wander from their mothers after they are weaned, an' get notions of their own; an' they can be cut out an' drove to another range an' grow up to be big cows. On a ranch like th' SV, that ain't had no round-up in three years, all calves will be mavericks. There won't be a sign on none of 'em to tell where they belongs. "Now, then: We'll say th' Bar H is dishonest, but its foreman an' outfit is workin' for th' ranch an' not for their own pockets. If they drove SV calves to their own ranch, they'd put an iron on 'em as soon as they could, after which they wouldn't have to bother with 'em no more. They wouldn't have to be guarded jealous by th' best man of th' outfit, an' turned back when they tried to get off th' ranch. When I heard how Wolf almost lived out here, I got suspicious, Pepper; an' when I saw too many mavericks on this ranch, I got more suspicious; an' you've mebby heard that I was brought up in a plumb suspicious outfit. Of course, all ranches are goin' to have some mavericks, 'specially if it has a wild, rough range. Brush, timber, scrub, an' broken country hides cows that don't get combed out in a round-up; we had some, ourselves, down on th' old Bar-20, along our west line--but th' numbers out here are scandalous. I'm keepin' cases on these cattle, an' I says it's so scandalous that it just can't be true--but it is true, so far. There's folks down here that are careless an' lazy, or crooked an' I've got my suspicions about which it is.