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That, broadly speaking, was the scheme; but there were delicate touches of refinement and ingenuity in the process which wrung from Stratton, in rare intervals when he was not too furious to judge calmly, a grudging measure of admiration for the wily foreman. Frequently, for instance, Stratton would be assigned to night-herd duty with promise of relief at a certain hour.
"I guess I haven't had to do that very often," was the reflective rejoinder. "But a mile or so back we passed a bunch of cattle, with the night man riding watch; I was just saying to myself that I'd like to change places with that night-herd only there wasn't going to be any chance." The bearded man's laugh was a deep-chested rumbling suggestive of rocks rolling down a declivity.
Early in June the herd began to assume its required numbers. George Edwards returned, and we naturally became bunkies, sharing our blankets and having the same guard on night-herd. The drovers encouraged all the men employed to bring along their firearms, and when we were ready to start the camp looked like an arsenal.
"Would I really do such a thing as that?" he asked himself half incredulously, when the night-herd and his grazing drove had become only a picturesque memory; and out of the heart-stirrings and pulse-quickenings came the answer: "I more than half believe that I would that I'd jump at the chance." Then he added regretfully: "But there isn't going to be any chance."
Darkness had fallen on my reaching the wagon, the herd had been bedded down, and Levering felt so confident that the remuda was contented that he had concluded to night-herd them himself until midnight, and then turn them loose until dawn. He had belled a couple of the leaders, and assured me that he would have them in hand before sun-up.
The words came gustily from the creek down the slope: "No chaps, no slicker, and a-pourin' down rain, And I swear by the Lord I'll never night-herd again, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a, youpy-a, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a! "Feet in the stirrups and seat in the saddle, I hung and rattled with them long-horn cattle, Coma ti yi " "Do shut the door, Billy Louise! What you want to stand there like that for?
"There's one chance yet," he said, "the night-herd." He turned to his trumpeter. "Sound the recall, and keep a-sounding it!" Again and again, the familiar strain rang out. All looked northward to where they knew the herd had been, to where the long curves of the prairie-fire were still moving. But the minutes went, and there was no answering beat of hoofs. Where were the herders?
By the same token he straddled the horse that was apportioned him, insisted on riding night-herd, and knew no hint of uncertainty when it came to him to turn the flank of a stampede with a flying slicker. He could take a chance. It was his joy to take a chance. But at such times he never failed of due respect for reality.
Fresh glimpses of the northward landscape shortly brought a renewal of the heart-stirrings; and when he finally had the longed-for sight of a bunch of grazing cattle, with the solitary night-herd hanging by one leg in the saddle to watch the passing of the train, the call of the homeland was trumpeting in his ears, and he would have given anything in reason to be able to changes places, temporarily at least, with the care-free horseman whose wiry, muscular figure was struck out so artistically against the dun-colored hillside.
Taking nothing but three-year-olds, we did not accumulate cattle fast; but it was continuous work, every man, with the exception of Uncle Lance, standing a guard on night-herd. The first two days we only gathered about five hundred steers.