I need young fellows like you on this
ranch. I've sent Dan out after Deweese, and to-morrow we're going to
commence gathering beeves. A few weeks' good hard work will do you
worlds of good. In less than a year, you'll look back at this as a
splendid lesson. Shucks! boy, a man is a narrow, calloused creature
until he has been shook up a few times by love affairs. They develop him
into the man he was intended to be. Come on into the house, Tom, and
Jean will make us a couple of mint juleps."
What a blessed panacea for mental trouble is work! We were in the saddle
by daybreak the next morning, rounding up _remudas_. Every available
vaquero at the outlying ranchitas had been summoned. Dividing the outfit
and horses, Uncle Lance took twelve men and struck west for the Ganso.
With an equal number of men, Deweese pushed north for the Frio, which
he was to work down below Shepherd's, thence back along the home river.
From the ranch books, we knew there were fully two thousand beeves over
five years old in our brand. These cattle had never known an hour's
restraint since the day they were branded, and caution and cool judgment
would be required in handling them. Since the contract only required
twelve hundred, we expected to make an extra clean gathering, using the
oldest and naturally the largest beeves.
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