On the Cattle Ranges. 59 



violent news concerning the fates of certain neighbors. 

 Then one by one we began to turn in under our blankets. 



Our wagon was to furnish the night guards for the cat- 

 tle ; and each of us had his gentlest horse tied ready to 

 hand. The night guards went on duty two at a time for 

 two-hour watches. By good luck my watch came last. 

 My comrade was a happy-go-lucky young Texan who for 

 some inscrutable reason was known as " Latigo Strap " ; 

 he had just come from the south with a big drove of trail 

 cattle. 



A few minutes before two one of the guards who had 

 gone on duty at midnight rode into camp and wakened 

 us by shaking our shoulders. Fumbling in the dark I 

 speedily saddled my horse ; Latigo had left his saddled, 

 and he started ahead of me. One of the annoyances of 

 night guarding, at least in thick weather, is the occasional 

 difficulty of finding the herd after leaving camp, or in re- 

 turning to camp after the watch is over ; there are few 

 things more exasperating than to be helplessly wandering 

 about in the dark under such circumstances. However, 

 on this occasion there was no such trouble ; for it was a 

 brilliant starlight night and the herd had been bedded down 

 by a sugar-loaf butte which made a good landmark. As 

 we reached the spot we could make out the loom of the 

 cattle lying close together on the level plain ; and then the 

 dim figure of a horseman rose vaguely from the darkness 

 and moved by in silence ; it was the other of the two mid- 

 night guards, on his way back to his broken slumber. 



At once we began to ride slowly round the cattle in 

 opposite directions. We were silent, for the night was 



