Fraudulently M---- had started new brands on the last two crops of colts, the pick of them going into his wife's brand; and her mares ranged with M----'s, now ours.

The band ran apparently anywhere.

They had the whole Staked Plains of New Mexico to wander over, there being then absolutely no fences for a distance of 200 miles.

Some 200 head of the gentler stock ranged near home; the balance, claimed to number some 300 more, were mixed up with the mustangs and were practically wild creatures, some of them having never been rounded up for over two years.
By this time some of M----'s old hands had come over to my side.

They knew the country, knew how best to handle these horses, and by favourable promise I got them to undertake to help in discriminating as to which colts were the Company's property and which Mrs M----'s.