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"What could want all those steers, Lucian?" said Eyer softly. "I can't think of anything or anybody disposing of such a bunch on such short notice, except a marching army, a marching column of soldier ants, or all the world's buzzards gathered together at one place. In any case the animals themselves would have created a fuss, would have kicked up so much noise that somebody would have heard.
He must have heard many strange tales, and jolly songs, around the camp fires of his mates, but none of them, apparently, were fit to print. He went hunting cattle, and got himself "bushed," or marooned that is, lost and had a narrow escape from dying in the woods. He helped at the cutting and trimming of the red wood, and at the curing of the hides of the slaughtered steers.
He's a regular-built poet, lives somewhere down East." "I can't help that, sonny; get on the other side of those steers, and see if you can't gee them around. Dear, dear, they're dreadful obstinate creatures!"
And they two girded themselves to slay the steers, proud Ancaeus and Heracles. The latter with his club smote one steer mid-head on the brow, and falling in a heap on the spot, it sank to the ground; and Ancaeus struck the broad neck of the other with his axe of bronze, and shore through the mighty sinews; and it fell prone on both its horns.
"I opened my eyes and here was ol' Jim Burnett with that double-barrel shotgun throwed down on me, I knew there was no use tryin' to get the play away from him, either; only a day or two before that he'd stuck up Johnny Harker and fined him a bunch of three-year-old steers for shootin' up the town. So I obeyed orders and
Meanwhile the herd trailed its half-mile length to the slaughtering pens day after day, all unconscious of its power. When the steers had trailed for about a fortnight, the question of finding sufficient water for them began to be a serious one. The preceding winter had been unusually mild, the snow-fall on the mountains averaging less than in the recollection of the oldest plains-man.
Dave murmured over and over again, as he neared the frightened, tumultous mass of steers. "But don't you stumble with me, Crow!" For to stumble meant, very likely, the death of horse and rider. Cattle on the range are used to seeing mounted men in fact they seldom see them otherwise, and for a mounted cowpuncher it is perfectly safe to ride in front of even a wildly running mass of steers.
I was willing to run my legs off after the frisky steers, who seemed to have an idea they were going on a lark, and frolicked about, dashing into all gates, and through all bars except the right ones; and how cheerfully I did yell at them. It was a glorious chance to "holler," and I have never since heard any public speaker on the stump or at camp-meeting who could make more noise.
"As the mariner steers for the lighthouse, as the hound runs down the stag, as the soldier wakes to the bugle, as the miner digs for fortune, as the drunkard drains the cup, as the saint watches the cross, I follow my work, I follow my work." "Life, life itself, does it increase in value or lessen?
I never seed none o' yer steam keers, but I reckon they don't go no faster ner thet blame hoss. Gosh, Cap, ye ain't got no call fer ter git mad; I couldn't a stopped her with a yoke o' steers, durned if I cud. I sorter reckon I know now 'bout whut Scott meant when he said, 'The turf the flying courser spurn'd, you bet this en did."
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