“Boys, I suppose you are all anxious to get a good remuda for this
summer’s trip. Well, I’ve got them for you. The only question is, how
can we distribute them equitably so that all interests will be
protected. One herd may not have near the distance to travel that the
others have. It would look unjust to give it the best horses, and yet
it may have the most trouble. Our remudas last year were all picked
animals. They had an easy year’s work. With the exception of a few
head, we have the same mounts and in much better condition than last
year. This is about my idea of equalizing things. You four old foremen
will use your remudas of last year. Then each of you six bosses select
twenty-five head each of the Dodge horses,—turn and turn about. Add
those to your old remudas, and cull back your surplus, allowing ten to
the man, twelve to the foreman, and five extra to each herd in case of
cripples or of galled backs. By this method, each herd will have two
dozen prime saddlers, the pick of a thousand picked ones, and fit for
any man who was ever in my employ. I’m breaking in two new foremen this
year, and they shall have no excuse for not being mounted, and will
divide the remainder. Now, take four men apiece and round up the saddle
stock, and have everything in shape to go into camp to-night. I’ll be
present at the division, and I warn you all that I want no clashing.”
A ranch remuda was driven in, and we saddled. There were about thirty
thousand acres in the pasture, and by eleven o’clock everything was
thrown together. The private horses of all the boys had been turned
into a separate inclosure, and before the cutting out commenced, every
mother’s son, including Don Lovell, arrived at the round-up. There were
no corrals on the ranch which would accommodate such a body of animals,
and thus the work had to be done in the open; but with the force at
hand we threw a cordon around them, equal to a corral, and the cutting
out to the four quarters commenced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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