CHAPTER XVII

DRIFTING

The next night Jack, Vicente and Tulare Joe went out on night herd for the second relief. It was very dark, the sky was pitchy black and the wind blew now and then in swift gusts.

"It's a mean night," Joe said as they rode along, "and I wouldn't be surprised if we had trouble with the cattle."

"It sure looks as if it were going to storm," Jack agreed; "and nobody can tell just what that will mean."

When they reached the herd, the men whom they were to relieve declared that so far the cattle were all right, but feared that the threatening storm would start them moving. Some of them decided that they would stay with the cattle until the storm broke, or passed over. "It's going to storm," they said, "and there's no use in going back to camp and getting into our blankets, only to be called out again in a few minutes." There was thus a double guard, and the men followed each other at shorter intervals than usual, singing, talking and calling, in the effort to give the cattle, which as yet were quiet, the confidence which so often seems to come from the proximity of a human being.

Presently it began to rain a little, and the wind blew harder, and in fierce gusts, with lulls between them. During such lulls, the wind could be heard coming far off, and in the blasts of wind the men to the windward of the cattle could not hear the sounds made by those to leeward.

By this time the cattle had begun to rise to their feet and to walk about, bawling. Then some of them, singly or by twos and threes, started out from the main bunch to walk away to leeward, only to be turned back by the men who came across them. Then, little by little, the whole bunch began to move along, but still only at a walk.

Jack spoke to Vicente in what he thought was a loud tone of voice, but the wind snatched his words away and Vicente, putting his hand up to his ear, leaned over toward Jack, who repeated his question.

"Shall we try to hold them, or just let them drift, and stay with them?"

"Must let 'em drift," shouted Vicente, "but keep 'em together. Pretty soon some boys from camp will come. Must let 'em drift until storm stops, or they get shelter. The best thing is for three of us to get ahead, and go slow with the wind, and one man get on each side."

Jack rode off to speak to such other men as he could find, and presently from up the wind came the sound of galloping hoofs, which then slowed down to a trot, and in a little while almost the whole force of the camp except the cook and the night horse wrangler were about the herd, moving along at the same pace with it, guarding it carefully in front and carefully on either side, and leaving the rear of the herd open.

The wind blew with the violence of a tornado and the occasional spits of level rain which accompanied the storm stung the face. One or two men who had been slow about tying on their hats lost them with little prospect of ever recovering them. The cattle were uncomfortable and moved along bellowing, but showed no disposition to run. On the sides they sometimes tried to scatter, but the line of boys riding there kept them turned back.

This went on for some hours, until Jack thought that daylight must be near. His slicker was on his saddle, but at no time had it seemed to rain hard enough to justify his stopping and putting it on, for at every moment there had seemed either something to be done, or a possibility that quick action might be required; so by this time he was pretty wet and pretty cold, but he thought little of this in his anxious watching of the cattle. Presently, however, he happened to turn his eyes upward, and saw three or four bright stars looking down at him from the sky, and he gave a whoop of joy for he knew that the storm had about blown itself out. Soon the wind began to fall and then the eastern horizon to lighten, and before very long the bright sun rose in a clear sky, and their troubles for the time were over.

The weary cowboys turned the herd and drove the cattle back over the trail they had followed, until they reached their old bed ground. There they turned them loose under the charge of two or three men, and all the others returned to camp for breakfast, which, as a matter of fact, was now dinner, for it was high noon.

"Boys," said McIntyre while they were eating their meal, "we may as well stop here now and rest up; but, Jack and Joe and Donald, as soon as you've eaten, you three go out and relieve those fellows on herd, and let them come in and get some dinner. After these boys have slept two or three hours, I will send men out to relieve you."

The cattle, like the cow punchers, were tired, and as soon as they had grazed a while they lay down, showing no disposition to move. The boys, therefore, took a commanding position on a hill and holding the ropes of their horses allowed them to feed about them.

"Of course, that was not a stampede, Joe?" asked Donald uncertainly.

"Not much," said Joe. "That was just plain ordinary drifting; but there was one while, just before the cattle started, when I thought that it was nip and tuck whether we would have a stampede or not. It would not have taken much to start those cattle off, and it sure would have been a bad night to ride in front of 'em and to turn 'em."

"I don't see how a man could ride fast over such a country as we crossed," Donald said.

"Well," said Jack, "could, or could not, he'd just have had to. It's a ground-hog case when a stampede is on."

"But I should think you'd break your neck; and kill all your horses."

"Well," declared Joe, "sometimes a man falls and breaks his neck, and oftener still a horse falls and breaks his neck or a leg, but of course the cattle have got to be turned. That's what we're hired for, and it's our business to do our work."

"You spoke before about turning the cattle. Where do you want to turn them to, and why do you want to turn them?"

"We want to turn 'em to get 'em to mill, and if we once get 'em milling, the trouble is pretty well over."

"I am sorry to seem so dull," said Donald, "but what do you mean by milling?"

"Why, we want to turn the cattle and get 'em running around in a circle. The hind ones will follow the lead ones, and if you can turn the lead ones, and keep 'em turning, after awhile they just keep running around and around in a circle and the hind ones follow 'em, and as you can understand, they don't get very far away."

"Now, certainly," exclaimed the Englishman, "that is very clever. I never should have thought of that. But how do you manage to turn them? Of course, you cannot go in front of them, because they would run over you and kill you."

"You do go in front of 'em; and without you go in front of 'em, you surely can't turn 'em. What a puncher does is to get right up even with the head of the herd and maybe a little in front of it, and then to keep edging over so as to push the head of the herd away from him. Likely too he's got to make some gun play, because, of course, the flash and noise of the shots close to 'em will tend to push the cattle over. Sometimes men go right in front of 'em and try to stop 'em by shooting, but I never saw much good done in that way.

"I reckon if you ask Vicente, or any of the older men here--McIntyre, for example--he'll tell you that it counts for more to try to push the cattle over from one side than it does to go in front of 'em and try to stop 'em. If you do that they may turn; but what's just as likely to happen is that they'll split and go off in two or three bunches--and that's likely to mean that the whole country has got to be ridden again to gather up these scattered cattle."

"It must require an extraordinary amount of courage on a black night such as last night to ride in front of, or even up at the head of, a herd of frightened cattle going as hard as they can," said Donald. "I am sure that I could not have ridden fast last night and guided my horse at all. I could not see my horse's ears, to say nothing of the ground in front of him."

"No," Jack said; "I guess you couldn't. I've never been yet in a real stampede, but I'd be willing to bet that the cow puncher who rode at the head of a stampede and tried to look out and guide his horse on to good ground would not be worth very much a month to his employer. How is that, Joe?"

Joe laughed.

"I guess he'd be worth about seventy-five cents a month; and he'd have to furnish his own grub, too."

"But what do you mean?" asked Donald.

"Why," explained Joe, "a man riding fast and at night don't try to pick his ground--he can't try to pick the ground. He leaves that to his horse; it's up to him to watch the cattle, and it's up to the horse to keep on his four legs. If the rider doesn't watch the cattle and the horse doesn't keep on his legs, why horse and rider both are out of it, and of no use to anybody."

"That's just what I supposed," said Jack. "I remember once a good many years ago Hugh gave me a lecture on horses, and the use they make of their eyes; he told me about how many falls young stock have before they are broken, and how much use horses must make of their eyes. You can see that if you put a blind on a horse, he will stand perfectly still, no matter how wild he is, and will let you do 'most anything with him. Take the use of his eyes away from him, and a horse is pretty nearly afraid to move."

"Sure thing," declared Joe, as he scratched a match to light a cigarette that he had just finished rolling; "a prairie or a mountain horse can go along in the dark without anybody guiding him a great deal better than he could if driven by the sharpest-sighted man."

"Donald might like to see it, but I hope with all my heart that we won't have a stampede on this round-up," Jack said.

"I hope not," replied Joe. "I have known of one man being killed and several men being hurt in stampedes, and if I can keep out of 'em I mean to do it. Now, look here, if one of you fellows will lend me his watch I'll set here and look after these cattle for an hour, and you two can go to sleep; then, after an hour, I'll call one of you and sleep myself, and an hour later he can call the other. By that time likely there'll be somebody out to relieve us."

"No," protested Donald; "you and Jack sleep, and let me watch. I have done less work than any one since I came here, and I can sit on this hill in the sun and see what the cattle are doing. If they make any movement I can call one of you."

"All right," assented Joe; "that'll suit me, if you feel like it."

Jack and Joe stretched themselves out on the ground and with their hats over their faces were soon breathing heavily in deep sleep. Donald sat on the hill and watched the cattle, but as time passed he grew more and more sleepy until finally he had almost made up his mind to stretch out and close his eyes--not really to sleep but just to think. However, as he looked at his watch just before this desire became overpowering, he saw that only ten minutes remained of his vigil, and so kept himself awake until it was time to call one of the others.

Joe on being roused shook himself, rose and walked a few yards back and forth in either direction and then, thoroughly awake, sat down and began to roll and smoke cigarettes.

Before the time came to call Jack, Mason and Charley Powell appeared on the scene, saying that they would stay with the cattle until it was time to bed them down. The other three gladly mounted their horses, trotted into camp and threw themselves on the ground in the shade, where they slept until the cook shouted the call for supper.

After the meal was over Jack sat down by the fire close to the Mexican.

"Vicente," he said, "I was mighty glad I bumped up against you last night, for I had no idea what had to be done. Of course, when I recognized your horse I knew that you could tell me."

"Yes," drawled Vicente between puffs of his cigarette, "last night, most had cattle running, what you say _estampeda_. Pretty lucky the other men got there. If once those cattle had started, we'd have had to ride hard."

"There was one while," said Jack Mason, "that I was plumb lost. I was riding that little whittley-dig pony of mine, and he stepped in a hole and fell down and I rolled off. It was so black I couldn't see anything. Reaching around I happened to feel the horse. I mounted, but I was all turned around. I didn't have an idea which way the cattle were, and I couldn't see nor hear 'em. Of course I knew the only thing to do was to let my horse find the cattle; and that's what he did; but until I got close to 'em I didn't know where they were, nor anything about 'em."

"Mighty queer," commented Hugh, who was listening, "the way a man can get turned around, if he can't use his eyes. I reckon I've told you, son," he added, turning to Jack, "about the only time I ever got lost. It was on pretty nearly level ground that I had never been on before, and in a blinding snowstorm. Well, sir, I had no more idea of the direction of the sun, moon or stars than just nothing at all. For a little way I traveled by the wind, and then I stopped and made up my mind that I'd wait until something happened; and I did have to wait for twenty-four long hours before I got a glimpse of the sun."

"I had something like that happen to me once in thick timber that had been burned over," Jack Mason said. "It was a cloudy day on a kind of plateau, and every tall straight stick looked like every other tall straight stick. A mighty mean situation to be in."

"It must be a terrible sensation," said Donald, "to lose all sense of direction. Long ago, before I had ever been much out of doors, I used to carry a compass and to consult it frequently, but of late years I have rather abandoned that practise."

"When the sky is clear you don't need a compass or anything else," said Jack, "because you can look at the sun or the stars; but, of course, if it's cloudy, or rainy, or snowy, that's different. If a man is in a country he knows, or knows anything about, and gets lost he can follow the ravines and creeks down to the main stream."

"Well," put in Hugh, "a man isn't in much danger of being lost just as long as he keeps his wits about him; but just as soon as he gets scared and loses his wits and begins to think that the sun is in the wrong place, or the compass is wrong, or the waters are running uphill, then he's in a bad way, because he's pretty close to crazy. The main thing is to keep your head, and then you'll come out all right; but in these days, when there are so many fences and roads and railroads all over the country it would be pretty hard to be lost, I expect."

"Yet back East," said Jack, "every now and then we hear about men and women and children being lost in little pieces of swamp and woods almost within hearing of their houses. Of course, these are people who have never thought of taking care of themselves out of doors, and get lost just as soon as they get where they can't see things that they recognize."

"Such people ought not to be allowed to wander away," drawled Jack Mason; "they ought to have people to look after them. But then I suppose back East there are so many houses and so many people that it's hard to get out of sight of 'em."

"No," laughed Jack; "there are a good many people there, but it isn't quite so bad as you say."

Hugh knocked the ashes from his pipe, rose to his feet, and stretched.

"Well, good night, boys; I'm going to hunt my blankets," he said.

The others soon followed him and the fire was deserted.