The Cattlemen

They were known simply as the Reid Brothers - Wade and Roy to family and friends - Texas cowboys born in the late 1800's, too late to make the long drives, but early enough to learn first hand the trade and skills of the open range from those who'd followed the big herds.

Roy was good with a rope. Wade, his feet crippled with arthritis and pain since his teens, could ride anything. They overcame - with humor, courage and determination - broken bones, broncs, bears, blizzards, droughts, a Great Depression, and a lender who wanted their ranch.

The Reid brothers were survivors of another era, another world - a world of soogans and canvas bedrolls and rocky ground and tired heads on saddle pillows, of starlit mornings and mesquite coals and scalding coffee and the rattle of chuckwagon pans, of range-killed beef tallow-fried and red beans and sourdough biscuits, of stiff ropes and stout broncs and the pop of saddle leather on crisp autumn mornings, of deft heelers and branding fires and running irons and rangy yearlings with unnotched ears, of strength-sapping rides and eighteen-hour days and bone-chilling downpours, of boot heels on lonely line shack floors and the jingle of spurs and the whine of Manila around slick snubbing posts. Theirs had been a tough world. And they were tough men.