On the Arizona range were the [JH] ranch, and the Circle I, and the Bar O, and the Double R, and the Box Springs, and others whose picturesque names I have forgotten.  To manage them were cowpunchers; and appertaining thereunto were Chinese cooks, and horses, and pump mules, and grub lists, and many other things.  The ranch itself was even more complicated an affair; for, as I have indicated, it meant many activities besides cattle.  And then there was the buying and selling and shipping.  The Captain was a busy man.

And the ranch was a busy place.  Its population swung through the nations.  Always the aristocracy was the cowboy.  There were not many of him, for the cattle here were fenced and fattened; but a few were necessary to ride abroad in order that none of the precious beef be mired down or tangled in barbed wire; and that all of it be moved hither and yon as the pasture varied.  And of course the driving, the loading and unloading of fresh shipments in and out demanded expert handling.

Some of them came from the desert, lean, bronzed, steady-eyed men addicted to “double-barrelled” (two cinch) saddles, ox-bow stirrups, straight-shanked spurs, tall-crowned hats, and grass ropes.  They were plain “cowpunchers.”  Between them and the California “vaqueros,” or “buckeroos”, was always much slow and drawling argument.  For the latter had been “raised different” in about every particular.  They used the single-cinch saddle; long tapaderos; or stirrup hoods; curve-shanked spurs with jingling chains; low, wide-brimmed sombreros and rawhide ropes.  And you who have gauged the earnestness of what might be called “equipment arguments” among those of a gentler calling, can well appreciate that never did bunk-house conversation lack.

Next to these cow riders and horse riders came probably the mule drivers.  There were many teams of mules, and they were used for many things:  such as plowing, cultivating, harvesting, haying, the building of irrigation checks and ditches, freighting, and the like.  A team comprised from six to twelve individuals.  The man in charge had to know mules—­which is no slight degree of special wisdom; had to know loads; had to understand conditioning.  His lantern was the first to twinkle in the morning as he doled out corn to his charges.

Then came the ruck of field hands of all types.  The average field hand in California is a cross between a hobo and a labourer.  He works probably about half the year.  The other half he spends on the road, tramping it from place to place.  Like the common hobo, he begs his way when he can; catches freight train rides; consorts in thickets with his kind.  Unlike the common hobo, however, he generally has money in his pocket and always carries a bed-roll.  The latter consists of a blanket or so, or quilt, and a canvas strapped around the whole.  You can see him at any time plodding along the highways and railroads, the roll slung across his back.  He