Our task for the moment was to search out the unbranded J H
calves. Since in ranks so closely crowded it would be physically
impossible actually to see an animal's branded flank, we depended
entirely on the ear-marks.
Did you ever notice how any animal, tame or wild, always points
his ears inquiringly in the direction of whatever interests or
alarms him? Those ears are for the moment his most prominent
feature. So when a brand is quite indistinguishable because, as
now, of press of numbers, or, as in winter, from extreme length
of hair, the cropped ears tell plainly the tale of ownership. As
every animal is so marked when branded, it follows that an uncut
pair of ears means that its owner has never felt the iron.
So, now we had to look first of all for calves with uncut ears.
After discovering one, we had to ascertain his ownership by
examining the ear-marks of his mother, by whose side he was sure,
in this alarming multitude, to be clinging faithfully.
Calves were numerous, and J H cows everywhere to be seen, so in
somewhat less than ten seconds I had my eye on a mother and son.
Immediately I turned Little G in their direction. At the slap of
my quirt against the stirrup, all the cows immediately about me
shrank suspiciously aside.
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