the rain. It went with the animal and could not be eradicated
from the animal's hide. Wherever the bearer was seen, the brand
upon its hide provided certain identification of the owner.

Now, all these basic ideas of the cow industry were old on the
lower range in Texas when our white men first drifted thither.
The cattle industry, although in its infancy, and although
supposed to have no great future, was developed long before Texas
became a republic. It never, indeed, changed very much from that
time until the end of its own career.

One great principle was accepted religiously even in those early
and crude days. A man's cow was HIS cow. A man's brand was HIS
brand. There must be no interference with his ownership. Hence
certain other phases of the industry followed inevitably. These
cattle, these calves, each branded by the iron of the owner, in
spite of all precautions, began to mingle as settlers became more
numerous; hence came the idea of the round-up. The country was
warm and lazy. If a hundred or a thousand cows were not
collected, very well. If a calf were separated from its mother,
very well. The old ranchers never quarreled among themselves.
They never would have made in the South anything like a cattle
association; it was left for the Yankees to do that at a time
when cows had come to have far greater values. There were few
arguments in the first rodeos of the lower range. One rancher
would vie with his neighbor in generosity in the matter of
unbranded calves. Haggling would have been held contemptible. On
the lower range in the old times no one cared much about a cow.
Why should one do so? There was no market for cows--no one who
wished to buy them. If one tendered a Mexican cinquo pesos for a