Ranch Life and the Hunting-trail

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T.F. Unwin, 1888 - 186 pages

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Page 150 - NEVER stoops the soaring vulture On his quarry in the desert, On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial look-out, Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; And a third pursues the second, Coming from the invisible ether, First a speck, and then a vulture, Till the air is dark with pinions.
Page 55 - There is a high regard for truthfulness and keeping one's word, intense contempt for any kind of hypocrisy, and a hearty dislike for a man who shirks his work. Many of the men gamble and drink, but many do neither; and the conversation is not worse than in most bodies composed wholly of male human beings. A cowboy will not submit tamely to an insult, and is ever ready to avenge his own wrongs; nor has he an overwrought fear of shedding blood.
Page 59 - Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough,
Page 38 - Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer The sunny Waste. They see the Ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream: thereon With snort and strain, Two...
Page 117 - Not see? because of night perhaps? why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, "Now stab and end the creature to the heft!
Page 10 - They are much better fellows and pleasanter companions than small farmers or agricultural laborers ; nor are the mechanics and workmen of a great city to be mentioned in the same breath.
Page 38 - His wheel'd house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal — Mares' milk, and bread Baked on the embers ; — all around The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris-flowers.
Page 17 - Unbranded animals are called mavericks, and when found on the round-up are either branded by the owner of the range on which they are, or else are sold for the benefit of the association. At every shipping point, as well as where the beef cattle are received, there are stock inspectors who jealously examine all the brands on the live animals or on the hides of the slaughtered ones, so as to detect any foul play, which is immediately reported to the association.
Page 9 - ... or leather overalls hamper them when on the ground; but their appearance is striking for all that, and picturesque too, with their jingling spurs, the big revolvers stuck in their belts, and bright silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely round their necks over the open collars of the flannel shirts.

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