Out Our Way: God wears chaps

Out our way, there are different ways of herding cattle. I recall on one round up, Big Mike, the boss, brought some friends with four-wheeler quads to push the main herd and I suspect they managed some 200-plus head that day. But Mike knew that the quads couldn’t get to every place the cattle could, so he called on Charlie and me to ride on horseback into the arroyos, and thickets.  Charlie warned me to wear chaps because some of the hawthorn thickets where pretty thick.

A cow has a tough hide and often a cow/calf pair will hole up in the midst of those thorn bushes, and going into the...