From time to time along the route the occurrence of one of the big home ranches causes a delay. Here a great corral or enclosure of rough logs has been erected, and smaller pens of a like nature. The whole party camp near the ranche, and the cattle are herded beside it. In the morning comes the chief work of the year. Every cow with a calf at her heel is the subject of careful scrutiny. If she bears the Rosebud brand, the calf belongs to the Rosebud ranche, and has to be caught there and then and branded. If not branded whilst still a calf, the little beast will be lost to the owner, for, once grown up, with no ever-present nurse to point out to whom she belongs, the unmarked heifer belongs to anyone who can catch and brand her. There are always a few scrub cattle on every range--beasts like some of those whose capture has been described in the last two chapters--who had succeeded so far in escaping the cowboy's hot iron. The work of 'cutting out,' that is, separating, the beasts to be branded from the rest of the herd, is to the cowboy what Rugby Union is to the schoolboy. It is full of excitement, tries every muscle of the horse, every quality, mental or physical, of the rider. This, on a small scale, was the work awaiting Snap on the morrow of his bear-hunt. Amongst the beasts driven in were a few which required to be branded, and, though their capture was mere child's play to the old hands, used to following a dodging heifer through a herd a thousand strong, it was intensely exciting to Snap. How the ponies twisted and turned amongst the crowding beasts, never for one moment losing touch of the animal which they wanted to cut out, was a marvel to him for many a day. Polo on a quick pony is trying to a man's seat, but cattle-driving on a pony which twists like a snipe and doubles like a hare, without any warning to the rider, is even more so. Having cut out, lassoed, and branded all that were unmarked save one, Tony and Wharton held a consultation as to that one. The men had not much to do; they had just had work enough in the crisp air to 'get their monkey up,' and were ready for anything. 'Say, Dick,' said Tony, 'shall we brand that old bull? the old varmint has had the laugh of us long, enough. Let's scar his rump for him this time, anyway!' The scrub bull alluded to by Tony was an old acquaintance of the men at Rosebud ranche. More than once had he been thrown and tied, always to break away and set the branders at defiance. Whilst the men were talking he was gradually drawing away from the herd, a strong, heavy-built beast, fierce and long-horned as a Texan bull, strong and sturdy as an English shorthorn. A short, crisply curled coat of a dull brown made him look, but for his more graceful build, more like a buffalo than a domestic beast.