AT THE FOSS RIVER RANCH

Spring is already upon the prairie.  The fur coat has already been exchanged for the pea-jacket.  No longer is the fur cap crushed down upon the head and drawn over the ears until little more than the oval of the face is exposed to the elements; it is still worn occasionally, but now it rests upon the head with the jaunty cant of an ordinary headgear.

The rough coated broncho no longer stands “tucked up” with the cold, with its hind-quarters towards the wind.  Now he stands grazing on the patches of grass which the melting snow has placed at his disposal.  The cattle, too, hurry to and fro as each day extends their field of fodder.  When spring sets in in the great North-West it is with no show of reluctance that grim winter yields its claims and makes way for its gracious and all-conquering foe.  Spring is upon everything with all the characteristic suddenness of the Canadian climate.  A week—­a little seven days—­and where all before had been cheerless wastes of snow and ice, we have the promise of summer with us.  The snow disappears as with the sweep of a “chinook” in winter.  The brown, saturated grass is tinged with the bright emerald hue of new-born pasture.  The bared trees don that yellowish tinge which tells of breaking leaves.  Rivers begin to flow.  Their icy coatings, melting in the growing warmth of the sun, quickly returning once more to their natural element.

With the advent of spring comes a rush of duties to those whose interest are centered in the breeding of cattle.  The Foss River Settlement is already teeming with life.  For the settlement is the center of the great spring “round-up.”  Here are assembling the “cow-punchers” from all the outlying ranches, gathering under the command of a captain (generally a man elected for his vast experience on the prairie) and making their preparations to scour the prairie east and west, north and south, to the very limits of the far-reaching plains which spread their rolling pastures at the eastern base of the Rockies.  Every head of cattle which is found will be brought into the Foss River Settlement and thence will be distributed to its lawful owners.  This is but the beginning of the work, for the task of branding calves and re-branding cattle whose brands have become obscured during the long winter months is a process of no small magnitude for those who number their stocks by tens of thousands.

At John Allandale’s ranch all is orderly bustle.  There is no confusion.  Under Jacky’s administration the work goes on with a simple directness which would astonish the uninitiated.  There are the corrals to repair and to be put in order.  Sheds and out-buildings to be whitewashed.  Branding apparatus to be set in working order, fencing to be repaired, preparations for seeding to commence; a thousand and one things to be seen to; and all of which must be finished before the first “bands” of cattle are rounded up into the settlement.