Both of them are necessary in bringing four thousand cattle through from
P Ranch to Winnemucca; and of both is required a degree of daring and
endurance, as well as a knowledge of the wild-animal mind, which lifts
their hard work into the heroic, and makes of every drive a sage-brush
epic--so wonderful is the working together of man and horse, a kind of
centaur of the plains.
From P Ranch to Winnemucca is a seventeen-day drive through a desert of
rim-rock and greasewood and sage, which, under the most favorable
conditions, is beset with difficulty, but which, in the dry season, and
with anything like four thousand cattle, becomes an unbroken hazard.
More than all else on such a drive is feared the wild herd-spirit, the
quick, black temper which, by one sign or another, ever threatens to
break the spell of the riders' power and sweep the maddened or
terrorized herd to destruction. The handling of the herd to keep this
spirit sleeping is ofttimes a thrilling experience.