“Under-bit right and a split left, if he belongs to the Cross-Triangle,” returned the pupil proudly, and in the same breath he exclaimed, “He is not branded either.”

Phil smiled approval.  “That’s right, and we’ll just fix him now, before somebody else beats us to him.”  He moved his horse slowly toward the cattle as he spoke.

“But,” exclaimed Patches, “how do you know that he belongs to the Cross-Triangle?”

“He doesn’t,” returned Phil, laughing.  “He belongs to me.”

“But I don’t see how you can tell.”

“I know because I know the stock,” Phil explained, “and because I happen to remember that particular calf, in the rodeo last spring.  He got away from us, with his mother, in the cedars and brush over near the head of Mint Wash.  That’s one of the things that you have to learn in this business, you see.  But, to be sure we’re right, you watch him a minute, and you’ll see him go to a Five-Bar cow.  The Five-Bar is my iron, you know—­I have a few head running with Uncle Will’s.”

Even as he spoke, the calf, frightened at their closer approach, ran to a cow that was branded as Phil had said, and the cow, with unmistakable maternal interest in her offspring, proved the ownership of the calf.

“You see?” said Phil.  “We’ll get that fellow now, because before the next rodeo he’ll be big enough to leave his mother, and then; if he isn’t branded, he’ll be a maverick, and will belong to anybody that puts an iron on him.”

“But couldn’t someone brand him now, with their brand, and drive him away from his mother?” asked Patches.

“Such things have been known to happen, and that not a thousand miles from here, either,” returned Phil dryly.  “But, really, you know, Mr. Patches, it isn’t done among the best people.”

Patches laughed aloud at his companion’s attempt at a simpering affectation.  Then he watched with admiration while the cowboy sent his horse after the calf and, too quickly for an inexperienced eye to see just how it was done, the deft riata stretched the animal by the heels.  With a short “hogging” rope, which he carried looped through a hole cut in the edge of his chaps near the belt, Phil tied the feet of his victim, before the animal had recovered from the shock of the fall; and then, with Patches helping, proceeded to build a small fire of dry grass and leaves and sticks from a near-by bush.  From his saddle, Phil took a small iron rod, flattened at one end, and only long enough to permit its being held in the gloved hand when the flattened end was hot—­a running iron, he called it, and explained to his interested pupil, as he thrust it into the fire, how some of the boys used an iron ring for range branding.

“And is there no way to change or erase a brand?” asked Patches, while the iron was heating.

“Sure there is,” replied Phil.  And sitting on his heels, cowboy fashion, he marked on the ground with a stick.