sounded very much like child's play.

Soon the gray dust-cloud took on a shade of blue in places where
the smoke from the fires cut through; a new tang smote the
nostrils: the rank odor of burning hair and searing hides; a new
note crept into the clamoring roar: the low-keyed blat of pain
and fright.

Thurston turned away his head from the sight and the smell, and
piled on wood until Park stopped him with. "Say, Bud, we ain't
celebrating any election! It ain't a bonfire we want, it's heat;
just keep her going and save wood all yuh can." After an hour
of fire-tending Thurston decided that there were things more
wearisome than "hollering 'em down the chutes." His eyes were
smarting intolerably with smoke and heat, and the smell of the
branding was not nice; but through the long afternoon he stuck
to the work, shrewdly guessing that the others were not having
any fun either. Park and "the Deacon" worked as hard as any,
branding the steers as they were squeezed, one by one, fast in
the little branding chutes. The setting sun shone redly through
the smoke before Thurston was free to kick the half-burnt sticks
apart and pour water upon them as directed by Park.

"Think yuh earned your little old dollar and thirty three cents,
Bud?" Park asked him. And Thurston smiled a tired, sooty smile
that seemed all teeth.

"I hope so; at any rate, I have a deep, inner knowledge of the
joys of branding cattle."