language of that country, a _rancho_--of sixteen thousand acres. Besides
attending to his business in the mines, and superintending his affairs
in Sacramento, Uncle James had devoted a portion of his time to
stock-raising; and, when Frank and Archie first saw his immense droves
of horses and cattle, they thought them sufficient in numbers to supply
all the markets in America.

Mr. Winters's rancho was not managed like the farms in our part of the
country. To begin with, there were but three fences on it--one inclosed
two small barns and corn-cribs; another, a pasture of two or three
acres, and the third formed the cow-pen. In the barns, Uncle James kept
his riding and farm horses; the pasture was for the use of the half
dozen cows which supplied the rancho with butter and milk; and the
cow-pen was nothing more nor less than a prison, into which, in the
spring of the year, all the young cattle and horses were driven and
branded with the initials of the owner's name. This was done so that
Mr. Winters and his hired men might be able to recognize the stock
anywhere. The cattle sometimes strayed, and became mixed up with those
of the neighbors, and the marks on their flanks showed to whom they
belonged.

[Illustration]

A fence around that farm would have been useless. None of the cattle and
horses had ever been handled, except when they were branded, and,
consequently, they were very wild. Sometimes they became frightened and
stampeded; and then they behaved like a herd of buffaloes, which turn
aside for nothing, and stop only when they are completely tired out. On
these occasions, the strongest fences that could have been made would
have been trampled down like the grass beneath their feet.