CHAPTER XVIII

A STAMPEDE

Jack was destined to be disappointed in his hope that he would not see a real stampede.

Toward evening of the very next day the sky clouded over in the late afternoon and there was a little rain. Night fell damp and drizzly, but there was nothing to lead any one to believe that there would be trouble. Jack went on night herd with the last relief, and with him rode Charley Powell, Donald and Mason. The herd was quiet, and the boys whom they relieved started back to camp, while the four who had come out began to ride about the cattle at a walk. For an hour or more the quiet continued, and there was no warning of any excitement.

Half asleep, Jack was riding along, when suddenly from the bed ground came a drumming of hoofs and a rattling of horns, constantly growing louder, and Jack knew that the whole herd were rushing directly toward him. In an instant, everything that he had ever heard about stampedes flashed through his memory, and he knew that the first thing he must do would be to get out of the way of the rushing cattle, and then that he must stay with the leaders.

The mind works quickly in such a case, and the horse, which often knows as much about handling cattle as the rider, is ready to do the right thing. With the first sound of the rushing herd, Jack's legs closed on his horse and it felt the spurs, and a short dash to one side took horse and rider out of the path of the dense mass of cattle which swept close behind them. Automatically, as it seemed, the horse turned and kept along with the bunch. Jack remembered that for a little while it was useless to try to do anything except keep up; he must wait until the cattle had become strung out, the swiftest ones leading and the others following. To try to turn the closely packed herd as it started would be hopeless. The only thing to do was to let them get well strung out, and then to ride up close to the leaders and push them over to one side.

In a short time Jack could tell from the sound that most of the bunch was behind him. He began to swing over to his left, so as to get close to the leaders. He thought that they must have run a mile.

Pushing up to the leaders, and constantly riding closer to them, he shouted and began to shoot his pistol, and as he drew nearer he was gratified to know that the cattle were crowding away from him. He was right with the leading animals. It was pitch dark and nothing could be seen, but the sound of the pounding hoofs, the clatter of horns as they struck against one another, and the puffing and snorting, told him that he was close among them.

Suddenly and without warning, Jack's horse turned a somersault. Jack flew a long way, and alighted on his back with a thump that almost knocked the breath out of him. Almost as he hit the ground, he heard his horse scramble to his feet and gallop off. He had no time to think about whether he had his breath or not, or whether his horse were lost. He was thinking of the cattle that were following the leaders he had just left, and realizing that in a few moments the whole bunch might run over him. He ran a few steps in the hope that he could get away, climbed a little bank and began to shout, to fire his gun and to shake the skirts of his slicker. He could hear cattle passing on both sides of him. Every now and then one would come near enough to be seen as a dim shadow; and as the animal saw the dancing, shouting man it would give a loud snort and jump sidewise, while Jack would jump the other way, sometimes almost in front of another animal which perhaps would snort and make a sweep of its horns or turn and kick at him. For a little while Jack had more excitement than had ever been compressed into a like space of time in his experience. He had no opportunity to think much of the danger, or to get frightened. All he could think about was to make all the noise he could, and to frighten away from himself the already terrified cattle.

Presently the rush of the cattle ceased. Jack reloaded his six-shooter, and then had time to collect his wits and to begin to wonder what had happened. He had seen nothing to make the cattle start, and did not know why they had done so. He had little or no idea why his horse had fallen, but when he began to move about, it was apparent that the animal had run into a shallow gulch which it had not seen, and thus had tripped. It was lucky for Jack that he had not tried to stick to the horse after it was evident that it must fall, but had let go and tried to get away from it. It was lucky also that he had clung to his six-shooter, for without doubt the shots that he fired after he was afoot had helped to turn the cattle from him.

Jack knew that it could not be far to camp, but his tumble and the excitement of the last few minutes had caused him wholly to lose his sense of direction. He knew that the only thing for him to do was to stay where he was until daylight broke, and then to make his way back to camp on foot. As soon as he could see, and so get his bearings, there would be no trouble in finding camp, where he could get a fresh horse; and as soon as day came the boys would of course start out to find the cattle.

It was still drizzling. Jack walked about a little to find some place to sit down and presently stumbled over an elevation which his hand told him was an ant-hill--one of those heaps of coarse sand a foot and a half or two feet high, which the ants throw up in high country. On this Jack sat down, for the ants would not be stirring until the hill had dried off, and he knew that it would not dry until the sun came up. Oddly enough he did not feel stiff or sore, and he concluded he must have landed on some big clump of brush which had broken his fall.

He sat there a few minutes, meditating on what had happened, when presently very faintly he heard the hoof-beats of a slowly jogging horse, which was drawing nearer and nearer.

"I wonder," thought Jack, "if that's my horse going back to camp? It would be great if I could catch him and ride in. The cattle are gone, and they can't be found until day."

The hoof-beats drew nearer and nearer, and presently seemed to be passing Jack, not very far off. He hurried toward the sound, calling out as he did so:

"Whoa, lad! Whoa, lad!"

"Hello, who's that?" came Donald's voice.

"Come over here, Donald," called Jack. "My horse fell with me and has gone off, and I'm waiting here for daylight to come to get back to camp. Where have you been?"

"Why," explained Donald, "I tried to follow those cattle, but they all ran away from me; and now I'm trying to get to camp, but my horse don't want to--he seems to want to follow the cattle."

"Well, I've had more excitement here in the last half-hour than any man is entitled to. When my horse fell I thought that whole bunch of cattle was going to run over me, and I've been jumping around here as hard as I could, trying to keep them off."

"I hope you didn't get hurt when your horse fell with you?"

"No," said Jack, "I must have hit a soft spot. I'm all right, but I'd like to get back to camp, so as to start out with the boys when it gets light, and try to find the cattle."

"I want to find camp, too," replied Donald; "but I don't know whether I can. My horse doesn't seem to want to go that way."

"Do you know in which direction camp is?"

"Yes; it's off that way," Donald answered, pointing.

"I'm all turned around," admitted Jack, "and I don't know where the camp is; but I'll tell you what I'd do if I wanted to go to camp--I'd put my reins down on my horse's neck and let him go in the direction he wants to go. The chances are that he knows where camp is a great deal better than any of the rest of us."

"That may be true," replied Donald; "but suppose, on the other hand, he takes me off four or five miles farther away; what then?"

"Well, if you're not willing to trust him, get down, and if we can find my ant-hill again we can sit there until day comes. It certainly can't be very far off." Jack looked around the horizon. "I believe that's day coming now," he said, pointing to a place where the sky seemed a little lighter than elsewhere. "If it is, we won't have long to wait before getting our direction."

Donald dismounted, and they sat there on the ground waiting. Presently the light grew, and it was now certain that this was the dawn; so the east was found and the points of the compass were located. Gradually it grew light. As soon as they could see a short distance, the boys started back to the camp, Jack walking over the damp ground, of which he picked up a few pounds on his shoes and spurs, so that at short intervals he was obliged to stop and clean off the mud. By this time, however, it had stopped raining, and the soil began to dry. Presently, when it was good daylight, though before the sun had risen, they met half a dozen men from the camp, starting out to look for the cattle.

McIntyre heard Jack's story with a broad grin; but he frowned as he thought of the cattle scattered, no one knew where.

"Did you see anything of Jack Mason?" he asked.

"No," answered Jack; "nothing. Two or three times as I was pushing in to turn the cattle, I thought I heard somebody yell behind me, but I could not be sure, for I was making all the noise I could myself."

"Well," said McIntyre, as he turned his horse, "go in and get something to eat and fresh horses, and then come on. It may take us a long time to gather those cattle, or maybe Mason has 'em wound up somewhere now."

The cowboys rode off, and Jack and Donald were soon in camp eating breakfast. Jack's slicker in his fall had been split from neck to skirt and until mended would be useless. Hugh, who with the cook and horse wrangler had remained in the camp, saw it, and told Jack to leave it with him, and he would sew up the tear. "It won't be of much use," he commented, "in real rainy weather, but it'll keep you dry in a drizzle."

Hugh had smiled at Jack's story of his attempts to dodge the stampeding cattle, and had told him that he was mighty lucky to have got off as he did.

A little later, Jack and Donald, mounted on fresh horses, rode out to take the trail of the stampeded cattle, but they had gone only a short distance, when from the top of a hill they saw, far off, a bunch of cattle coming.

One of the first men they saw when they met the herd was Jack Mason, and the two young men rode up beside him to ask an account of his adventures, and to relate their own.

"I was following along not far behind you, Jack," said Mason. "You were advertising your place by shooting and hollering, and I was trying hard to get up to you, to try to help push over the lead cattle and get 'em turned. All of a sudden, though, your light seemed to go out. There were no more shots and no more yells, and I made up my mind something had happened to put you out of business. Before very long I got up to the leaders and managed to crowd 'em over and over until at last I got 'em running in a circle, and then before long, of course, the circle got smaller and smaller until they all got packed together and then they had to stop. They didn't get very far beyond where you left 'em, not more than a mile and a half, I should think, and I didn't have any trouble holding 'em there until daylight; and soon after that the boys came up, and here we are again. But what happened to you? I suppose your horse fell, because he was with the cattle when day come. One of the boys has got him there now."

Jack told again of his fall, and as before the story was laughed at and he was congratulated on his escape.

"Well," said McIntyre, as the party got into camp, "we seem to be anchored to this place. We'd better move to-day. You boys go out and ride a short circle and we'll camp to-night over on Sand Creek."

That night in camp the talk was all of stampedes; there was the usual speculation as to what caused them, and all agreed that no one could tell why cattle stampeded.

Jack Mason was asked whether anything had happened to start the cattle, so far as he could see, and both he and Donald declared that they knew of nothing that could have alarmed the cattle.

"I saw something funny a number of years ago, down on the prairie," said Hugh. "I was working for Cody and North, on the Dismal River, and one time when we were taking some beeves into town south of the range, near Cottonwood Creek, these beeves stampeded. It was a bright moonlight night, and you could see quite a long way. I had been riding around the beeves and had stopped my horse and was sitting quiet on him, watching the cattle, when, suddenly, a little off to one side, I saw an antelope. He must have seen me about the same time and have wondered what I was. He trotted up pretty near me and then trotted away again, and made a circle and came around near the cattle, and when he got pretty close to 'em he whistled, and away the beeves went. It didn't take 'em half a minute to get started, and they were headed straight toward the tent and the wagon. I crowded 'em off so that they missed the wagon. They were not much frightened, and ran only a little way. I suppose they were just startled for a minute."

"I was in a beef stampede down there one time," said Tulare Joe. "These were big beeves, ready for market and we were cutting 'em out to ship. That was one of those black nights that you read about. You couldn't see anything. We had the beeves bedded down on the side of a sand-hill, one of those sand-hills that's terraced off in little benches. I never knew what started those cattle, but they started and came down the hill toward me, and I went down the hill in front of them, not knowing whether I'd get out alive or not. The way their horns hit together sounded like a company of cavalry firing their pistols. When we got down on the flat, the cattle passed Jim Lawson and me, and we chased 'em down the valley for several miles, but finally we lost 'em all. Later we gathered 'em--most of 'em at least. When we were rounding up the country down on the middle Loup, we kept finding these cattle for three or four days. We got 'em to the railroad at last."

"There was another stampede, and a queer one, at the Dismal Ranch," Hugh said. "A big bunch of yearlings stampeded in a corral. I never understood how it was, for I wasn't there when they started, but was coming down toward the ranch. Of course we had never thought of cattle stampeding in the corral, and it happened that there were no horses up; most of 'em were in a little pasture close to the house. The corral was cut into four small pens and next to the outside fence there was a gate in the wall of each pen, opening into the next pen. These gates were open, and you'd think that if the cattle had stampeded in the corral they'd all have run around one way, but instead of that these yearlings must have split in two bodies, and one part run around the corral one way, and one the other. Then they must have met and piled up there, and the result was that they broke out two panels of the fence--great strong cedar posts and poles. Some of 'em went over the fence, but most of 'em went through, and the fence was at least seven feet high.

"I was going down to the ranch and was about a mile away when I heard them start, and when I got down to the corral they were just going over and through the fence. I followed 'em, and Buck and Bax Taylor came on as soon as they could get horses. Those yearlings ran all night. Two or three times we got 'em together and turned 'em until they'd stand still, and then they'd keep perfectly quiet. For about fifteen minutes after they'd stopped they were so quiet that you couldn't hear a sound; you couldn't hear 'em breathe; and then they'd begin to step out a little to get room, until they were pretty well spread out. They'd stand still listening and not making a move; and then, all of a sudden, off they'd go again. We lost about a hundred out of the bunch, but got 'em later on another round-up. Several were killed going over the fence, and two or three broke their legs, and there was about a wagon load of horns on the ground there."

"That antelope story of yours is a pretty good one, Hugh, but I've got another," spoke up Tom Smith. "I was on herd one bright moonlight night and the cattle were all lying down. I'd been riding about 'em and had stopped for a little time, and was sitting still on my horse. I was about half asleep, with my face to the cattle, and my horse must have gone altogether asleep. He must have been asleep, because he fell on his knees, and when he fell the saddle-flaps squeaked. That started the cattle. They jumped up and ran; but they didn't go far. I don't think they really stampeded--they were just startled, not scared."

"I reckon everybody was kind o' surprised that time," chuckled Hugh.

"I know I was," admitted Tom.

"I don't call that stampede by the antelope, nor the one Tom just spoke about, a real stampede," said Joe; "but that stampede of the yearlings, and the one we had last night, were sure enough the real thing."

"Yes," said Hugh, "those yearlings were scared for keeps. That bunch had just come over the trail from Texas, and the animals were tired and thin. They'd just come in and hadn't been branded. I never would have supposed that they could have stampeded, but they were scared; and they were always afraid of that corral. We never got that bunch into that corral afterward. We had to rope most of 'em out on the flat, and brand 'em that way. It was awful slow work, and before we got through we tried separating 'em into little bunches of forty or fifty, and these little bunches we could get into the corral."

"Wasn't it dark last night?" remarked Donald. "I do not remember ever to have seen a blacker night."

"I guess so," said Joe. "We've all of us been out on some of those black nights when you just can't see anything. Some nights maybe you think it's just as dark as it can possibly get, and then all at once it gets so much darker that you think it hadn't been at all dark before. On some of those nights you can see the electricity on your horse, a sort of blue light running up from your horse's ears and then maybe a little blue flame running down the back of his neck toward your saddle. I never saw cattle run in that kind of weather; though you'd think they would.

"I remember one night of that kind. We were holding the cattle, but it was blowing and raining some, and the herd was drifting along behind us, like it did night before last. There were several of us in front of the cattle; we could hear each other when we called, but we couldn't see each other, nor anything else. There was some lightning--very bright. I had just turned my horse to look back and try to see by the lightning flashes if any of the cattle were slipping by us and getting away, when all at once the lightning struck right in the middle of the bunch. There was about seventeen hundred head of 'em, and for a second it was just like day and I saw the whole bunch. I saw the bolt fall. It seemed to me that the whole middle was knocked out of the herd. I thought I saw two hundred head of cattle drop. They fell in every direction. The cattle didn't run, but that lightning killed seven head.

"After the storm had passed, we turned the cattle and drove 'em back to a bed ground, close to where they'd started from."

"Well, I've been handling cattle for a good while," said McIntyre, "and I've no idea what makes cattle stampede. Anything may cause one, and then again there are times when you couldn't stampede a bunch if you tried."