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Frank was dreaming of the excitement attending some of the many dashing gallops he had lately enjoyed in company with his chum, looking up stray cattle, helping to brand mavericks, watching the cowmen mill stampeding herds, or chasing fleet-footed antelopes just to give the horses a run. He was suddenly aroused by a strange sound that seemed to cause the very earth under him to tremble.
But somebody had to save the old-timers." "It strikes me that stampeding is at best a sporting proposition." "And it strikes me you two are very game about it," she went on, then added with the shadow of a sigh: "What a pity you are not old- timers." For two hours more they kept to the frozen creek-bed of Norway, then turned into a narrow and rugged tributary that flowed from the south.
But the captain was not to be tricked in that manner; and calmly ignoring the badly aimed rifle-bullets, he made Bart lead, and getting the waggon-horses into a sharp trot, they made straight now for the fortress-gate. "Steady, steady!" shouted the captain; "no stampeding. Every man in his place, and ready to turn when I cry Halt! to fire, if needs be. Steady there!"
It was Carey, caustic of humour, uncompromising of attitude, who sauntered through a hail of bullets to fill a wounded man's water-tin; Carey who pushed his way among stampeding mules to rescue sorely needed medical stores; Carey who had limped beside footsore, jaded men, and whistled them out of their depression.
Right and left. 'Halloa! stand by, boys! Look up; see 'em swarming, black like ants, over the waggons. Inside the laager. Snatch up rifles! All up! Oxen stampeding, men running, blacks sticking 'em like pigs in the back with their assegais. Bad job, the whole thing. Don't care for it, myself. Very tough 'uns to fight. If they once break laager."
Besides, there drifted down the river wild rumors of the wonderful El Dorado, glowing descriptions of the city of logs and tents, and ludicrous accounts of the che-cha-quas who had rushed in and were stampeding the whole country. Circle City was dead. The world had moved on up river and become a new and most marvelous world.
Stampeding is, of course, now done away with. During the years I worked for D. A. Sanford I had more or less trouble all the time with cattle thieves, but succeeded fairly well in either detecting the guilty ones or in getting back the stolen cattle. I meted out swift and sure justice to rustlers, and before long it became rumored around that it was wise to let cattle with the D.S. brand alone.
Old Lobo, the weir-wolf, knew as well as the shepherds that the goats were the moral force of the flock, so hastily running over the backs of the densely packed sheep, he fell on these leaders, slew them all in a few minutes, and soon had the luckless sheep stampeding in a thousand different directions.
Just beyond him was a grassy glade glistening with morning dew, and scattered over it was the entire command of the wicked old mule, the wealth and the comfort together of the Nez Percé pony-riders. To have been seen by them prematurely would have been a pretty sure way of stampeding them again, and the occasion called for prudence and good management.
The same Bull Durham and brown-paper cigarette, hand-rolled, contented him. It was true that he kept more dogs, and paid enormous prices for them. They were not a luxury, but a matter of business. He needed speed in his travelling and stampeding. And by the same token, he hired a cook. He was too busy to cook for himself, that was all.
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