At intervals of ten to fifteen miles along the valley, the traveler passes ranches, the headquarters of the wealthy cattlemen whose herds roam all over the valleys, the hills, and table-lands for many miles in every direction, designating the companies or individual owners merely by the brands their herds bear (which is the custom of the country). We shall encounter on our way the "MC" outfit, whose herd numbers fourteen thousand head; the "WL" brand, six thousand head; "7OL," one thousand head; "S-I," twenty-five thousand head; "_N_," twenty-five thousand head; "[3-rail]," five thousand head; and many other smaller and some larger herds. The buildings and improvements consist generally of substantial, roomy log houses, stables for the horses, corrals or strong yards in which large herds of cattle may be confined for branding, etc. The Montana Stock Growers' Association has also built public branding-pens at intervals of four to six miles along the river. The owners of the stock seldom live on the ranches themselves, many of them being residents of Eastern cities, and others having their homes in the railroad towns within convenient distance of the ranches. The occupants of the "shack," as the ranch house is called, are the foreman, the cook, and a sufficient number of cowboys or herders to look after and handle the stock properly. Some of the choice bits of natural meadow are fenced and hay cut on them, and each ranch has more or less hay land about the heads of creeks on its range, for it is necessary to make hay enough each season to feed at least the calves and some of the weaker cattle through the severe blizzards that so frequently occur in winter. The cattle belonging to each of these ranches are allowed to range almost at will over the adjacent hills and table-lands, though the limits proper of each range are supposed to extend ten to fifteen miles in each direction from the ranch house.
The Montana Stock Growers' Association, at its meeting in March, designated the seventh day of May as the day for beginning the roundup in the Powder river district this year, and selected a foreman to take charge of it who had seen many years of service in the saddle, who has a happy faculty of controlling the men under his charge perfectly, and yet of putting himself on free and friendly terms with them all. He can throw a _riata_ with such precision as to take a steer by the head or by either foot he wishes in almost every instance, and beasts as well as men soon learn to obey his wishes.