and bacon, Sid Coburn told Tom Simpson a little, and a very little, about the ranch.
It lay a matter of fifty-odd miles west of Drumwell, on the Medicine Lodge River, which was not much of a river, when all was said, Coburn informed his provisional herdsman, as if to spare him in advance any disappointment the promise of such a romantic name might carry. The Bar-Heart-Bar wasn't a very big outfit, nothing like as big as the Bar-Heart-J of Texas, with which it was sometimes confused. He was hiring about twelve men that season, and would be able to get along with fewer next, as the encroachment of homesteaders was cutting down the range year by year.
Their main job, Coburn said, was to keep the cattle from crossing into the Cherokee Nation, or Cherokee Strip as it was called locally. There were a good many brand-burners down there, put out of open rustling by the cattlemen's association, who did business in strays that way, changing brands or not changing them, as the purchaser might desire, and selling to the Indians. Not much of a business, but the leak was considerable in the course of a year.
No, there was no more cattle rustling, in the old sense, down that way. The association had so perfected its organization that a man on the outside of it stood marked for just about what he was. They had brand-inspectors at all the big markets, and if one man's cattle got mixed with another's and shipped, the inspector asked for a bill of sale covering them. If such a bill of sale was not forthcoming, the odd cattle were told off, collection made for the sale, and the check sent to the rightful owner.
