CHAPTER XVIII
A STAMPEDE
Jack was destined to be disappointed in his hope that he would not seea real stampede.
Toward evening of the very next day the sky clouded over in the lateafternoon and there was a little rain. Night fell damp and drizzly,but there was nothing to lead any one to believe that there would betrouble. Jack went on night herd with the last relief, and with himrode Charley Powell, Donald and Mason. The herd was quiet, and the boyswhom they relieved started back to camp, while the four who had comeout began to ride about the cattle at a walk. For an hour or more thequiet continued, and there was no warning of any excitement.
Half asleep, Jack was riding along, when suddenly from the bed groundcame a drumming of hoofs and a rattling of horns, constantly growinglouder, and Jack knew that the whole herd were rushing directly towardhim. In an instant, everything that he had ever heard about stampedesflashed through his memory, and he knew that the first thing he must dowould be to get out of the way of the rushing cattle, and then that hemust stay with the leaders.
The mind works quickly in such a case, and the horse, which often knowsas much about handling cattle as the rider, is ready to do the rightthing. With the first sound of the rushing herd, Jack's legs closedon his horse and it felt the spurs, and a short dash to one side tookhorse and rider out of the path of the dense mass of cattle which sweptclose behind them. Automatically, as it seemed, the horse turned andkept along with the bunch. Jack remembered that for a little while itwas useless to try to do anything except keep up; he must wait untilthe cattle had become strung out, the swiftest ones leading and theothers following. To try to turn the closely packed herd as it startedwould be hopeless. The only thing to do was to let them get well strungout, and then to ride up close to the leaders and push them over to oneside.
In a short time Jack could tell from the sound that most of the bunchwas behind him. He began to swing over to his left, so as to get closeto the leaders. He thought that they must have run a mile.
Pushing up to the leaders, and constantly riding closer to them, heshouted and began to shoot his pistol, and as he drew nearer he wasgratified to know that the cattle were crowding away from him. He wasright with the leading animals. It was pitch dark and nothing could beseen, but the sound of the pounding hoofs, the clatter of horns as theystruck against one another, and the puffing and snorting, told him thathe was close among them.
Suddenly and without warning, Jack's horse turned a somersault. Jackflew a long way, and alighted on his back with a thump that almostknocked the breath out of him. Almost as he hit the ground, he heardhis horse scramble to his feet and gallop off. He had no time to thinkabout whether he had his breath or not, or whether his horse werelost. He was thinking of the cattle that were following the leadershe had just left, and realizing that in a few moments the whole bunchmight run over him. He ran a few steps in the hope that he could getaway, climbed a little bank and began to shout, to fire his gun and toshake the skirts of his slicker. He could hear cattle passing on bothsides of him. Every now and then one would come near enough to be seenas a dim shadow; and as the animal saw the dancing, shouting man itwould give a loud snort and jump sidewise, while Jack would jump theother way, sometimes almost in front of another animal which perhapswould snort and make a sweep of its horns or turn and kick at him. Fora little while Jack had more excitement than had ever been compressedinto a like space of time in his experience. He had no opportunity tothink much of the danger, or to get frightened. All he could thinkabout was to make all the noise he could, and to frighten away fromhimself 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 hadhappened. He had seen nothing to make the cattle start, and did notknow why they had done so. He had little or no idea why his horse hadfallen, but when he began to move about, it was apparent that theanimal had run into a shallow gulch which it had not seen, and thushad tripped. It was lucky for Jack that he had not tried to stick tothe horse after it was evident that it must fall, but had let go andtried to get away from it. It was lucky also that he had clung to hissix-shooter, for without doubt the shots that he fired after he wasafoot had helped to turn the cattle from him.
Jack knew that it could not be far to camp, but his tumble and theexcitement of the last few minutes had caused him wholly to lose hissense of direction. He knew that the only thing for him to do was tostay where he was until daylight broke, and then to make his way backto 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 freshhorse; and as soon as day came the boys would of course start out tofind the cattle.
It was still drizzling. Jack walked about a little to find some placeto sit down and presently stumbled over an elevation which his handtold him was an ant-hill--one of those heaps of coarse sand a foot anda half or two feet high, which the ants throw up in high country. Onthis Jack sat down, for the ants would not be stirring until the hillhad 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 musthave landed on some big clump of brush which had broken his fall.
He sat there a few minutes, meditating on what had happened, whenpresently very faintly he heard the hoof-beats of a slowly jogginghorse, which was drawing nearer and nearer.
"I wonder," thought Jack, "if that's my horse going back to camp? Itwould 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 bepassing Jack, not very far off. He hurried toward the sound, callingout 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 hasgone off, and I'm waiting here for daylight to come to get back tocamp. Where have you been?"
"Why," explained Donald, "I tried to follow those cattle, but they allran away from me; and now I'm trying to get to camp, but my horse don'twant to--he seems to want to follow the cattle."
"Well, I've had more excitement here in the last half-hour than any manis entitled to. When my horse fell I thought that whole bunch of cattlewas going to run over me, and I've been jumping around here as hard asI 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'dlike to get back to camp, so as to start out with the boys when it getslight, and try to find the cattle."
"I want to find camp, too," replied Donald; "but I don't know whether Ican. 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 thecamp is; but I'll tell you what I'd do if I wanted to go to camp--I'dput my reins down on my horse's neck and let him go in the directionhe wants to go. The chances are that he knows where camp is a greatdeal better than any of the rest of us."
"That may be true," replied Donald; "but suppose, on the other hand, hetakes 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 findmy ant-hill again we can sit there until day comes. It certainly can'tbe very far off." Jack looked around the horizon. "I believe that's daycoming now," he said, pointing to a place where the sky seemed a littlelighter than elsewhere. "If it is, we won't have long to wait beforegetting our direction."
Donald dismounted, and they sat there on the ground waiting. Presentlythe light grew, and it was now certain that this was the dawn; so theeast was found and the points of the compass were located. Graduallyit grew light. As soon as they could see a short distance, the boysstarted back
to the camp, Jack walking over the damp ground, of whichhe picked up a few pounds on his shoes and spurs, so that at shortintervals 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 methalf 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 hethought 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 into turn the cattle, I thought I heard somebody yell behind me, but Icould 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 somethingto eat and fresh horses, and then come on. It may take us a long timeto gather those cattle, or maybe Mason has 'em wound up somewhere now."
The cowboys rode off, and Jack and Donald were soon in camp eatingbreakfast. Jack's slicker in his fall had been split from neck to skirtand until mended would be useless. Hugh, who with the cook and horsewrangler had remained in the camp, saw it, and told Jack to leave itwith him, and he would sew up the tear. "It won't be of much use," hecommented, "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 stampedingcattle, and had told him that he was mighty lucky to have got off as hedid.
A little later, Jack and Donald, mounted on fresh horses, rode out totake the trail of the stampeded cattle, but they had gone only a shortdistance, when from the top of a hill they saw, far off, a bunch ofcattle 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 hisadventures, and to relate their own.
"I was following along not far behind you, Jack," said Mason. "You wereadvertising your place by shooting and hollering, and I was trying hardto get up to you, to try to help push over the lead cattle and get 'emturned. All of a sudden, though, your light seemed to go out. Therewere no more shots and no more yells, and I made up my mind somethinghad happened to put you out of business. Before very long I got up tothe 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 circlegot smaller and smaller until they all got packed together and thenthey 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 anytrouble holding 'em there until daylight; and soon after that the boyscame up, and here we are again. But what happened to you? I supposeyour horse fell, because he was with the cattle when day come. One ofthe boys has got him there now."
Jack told again of his fall, and as before the story was laughed at andhe was congratulated on his escape.
"Well," said McIntyre, as the party got into camp, "we seem to beanchored to this place. We'd better move to-day. You boys go out andride 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 usualspeculation as to what caused them, and all agreed that no one couldtell 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 knewof 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 therange, near Cottonwood Creek, these beeves stampeded. It was a brightmoonlight night, and you could see quite a long way. I had been ridingaround the beeves and had stopped my horse and was sitting quiet onhim, 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 havewondered what I was. He trotted up pretty near me and then trottedaway again, and made a circle and came around near the cattle, andwhen 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 headedstraight toward the tent and the wagon. I crowded 'em off so that theymissed the wagon. They were not much frightened, and ran only a littleway. I suppose they were just startled for a minute."
"I was in a beef stampede down there one time," said Tulare Joe. "Thesewere 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'tsee 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 neverknew what started those cattle, but they started and came down thehill toward me, and I went down the hill in front of them, not knowingwhether I'd get out alive or not. The way their horns hit togethersounded like a company of cavalry firing their pistols. When we gotdown 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 upthe country down on the middle Loup, we kept finding these cattle forthree 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 neverunderstood how it was, for I wasn't there when they started, but wascoming down toward the ranch. Of course we had never thought of cattlestampeding 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 wascut into four small pens and next to the outside fence there was a gatein the wall of each pen, opening into the next pen. These gates wereopen, and you'd think that if the cattle had stampeded in the corralthey'd all have run around one way, but instead of that these yearlingsmust have split in two bodies, and one part run around the corral oneway, 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--greatstrong cedar posts and poles. Some of 'em went over the fence, but mostof '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 heardthem start, and when I got down to the corral they were just going overand through the fence. I followed 'em, and Buck and Bax Taylor came onas soon as they could get horses. Those yearlings ran all night. Twoor three times we got 'em together and turned 'em until they'd standstill, and then they'd keep perfectly quiet. For about fifteen minutesafter 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 alittle to get room, until they were pretty well spread out. They'dstand 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, butgot 'em later on another round-up. Several were killed going over thefence, and two or three broke their legs, and there was about a wagonload of horns on the ground there."
"That antelope story of yours is a pretty good one, Hugh, but I've gotanother," spoke up Tom Smith. "I was on herd one bright moonlight nightand the cattle were all lying down. I'd been riding about 'em and hadstopped for a little time, and was sitting still on my horse. I wasabout half asleep, with my face to the cattle, and my horse must havegone altogether asleep. He must have been asleep, because he fell onhis knees, and when he fell the saddle-flaps squeaked. That started thecattle. They jumped up and ran; but they didn't go far. I don't thinkthey 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 spokeabout, 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 bunchhad just come over the trail from Texas, and the animals were tired andthin. They'd
just come in and hadn't been branded. I never would havesupposed that they could have stampeded, but they were scared; and theywere always afraid of that corral. We never got that bunch into thatcorral 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 wetried separating 'em into little bunches of forty or fifty, and theselittle bunches we could get into the corral."
"Wasn't it dark last night?" remarked Donald. "I do not remember everto have seen a blacker night."
"I guess so," said Joe. "We've all of us been out on some of thoseblack nights when you just can't see anything. Some nights maybe youthink it's just as dark as it can possibly get, and then all at once itgets 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, asort of blue light running up from your horse's ears and then maybe alittle 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 theywould.
"I remember one night of that kind. We were holding the cattle, but itwas blowing and raining some, and the herd was drifting along behindus, like it did night before last. There were several of us in front ofthe cattle; we could hear each other when we called, but we couldn'tsee each other, nor anything else. There was some lightning--verybright. I had just turned my horse to look back and try to see by thelightning flashes if any of the cattle were slipping by us and gettingaway, when all at once the lightning struck right in the middle of thebunch. There was about seventeen hundred head of 'em, and for a secondit 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 everydirection. The cattle didn't run, but that lightning killed seven head.
"After the storm had passed, we turned the cattle and drove 'em back toa bed ground, close to where they'd started from."
"Well, I've been handling cattle for a good while," said McIntyre, "andI've no idea what makes cattle stampede. Anything may cause one, andthen again there are times when you couldn't stampede a bunch if youtried."
Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up Page 20
