7 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



boys, each muffled in his slicker and with his broad hat pulled down over 

 his eyes, to shield him from the pelting rain. When the cattle were quiet 

 for a moment every horseman at once turned round with his back to the 

 wind, and the whole line stood as motionless as so many sentries. Then, 

 if the cattle began to spread out and overlap at the ends, or made a rush 

 and broke through at one part of the lines, there would be a change into 

 wild activity. The men, shouting and swaying in their saddles, darted to 

 and fro with reckless speed, utterly heedless of danger now racing to 

 the threatened point, now checking and wheeling their horses so sharply 

 as to bring them square on their haunches, or even throw them flat down, 

 while the hoofs plowed long furrows in the slippery soil, until, after some 

 minutes of this mad galloping hither and thither, the herd, having drifted 

 a hundred yards or so, would be once more brought up standing. We 

 always had to let them drift a little to prevent their spreading out too 

 much. The din of the thunder was terrific, peal following peal until they 

 mingled in one continuous, rumbling roar; and at every thunder-clap 

 louder than its fellows the cattle would try to break away. Darkness had 

 set in, but each flash of lightning showed us a dense array of tossing 

 horns and staring eyes. It grew always harder to hold in the herd ; but 

 the drift took us along to the corrals already spoken of, whose entrances 

 were luckily to windward. As soon as we reached the first we cut off 

 part of the herd, and turned it within ; and after again doing this with the 

 second, we were able to put all the remaining animals into the third. The 

 instant the cattle were housed five-sixths of the horsemen started back at 

 full speed for the wagons ; the rest of us barely waited to put up the bars 

 and make the corrals secure before galloping after them. We had to ride 

 right in the teeth of the driving storm ; and once at the wagons we made 

 small delay in crawling under our blankets, damp though the latter were, 

 for we were ourselves far too wet, stiff, and cold not to hail with grateful 

 welcome any kind of shelter from the wind and the rain. 



All animals were benumbed by the violence of this gale of cold rain : 

 a prairie chicken rose from under my horse's feet so heavily that, thought- 

 lessly striking at it, I cut it down with my whip ; while when a jack rabbit 

 got up ahead of us, it was barely able to limp clumsily out of our way. 



But though there is much work and hardship, rough fare, monotony, 

 and exposure connected with the round-up, yet there are few men who do 

 not look forward to it and back to it with pleasure. The only fault to be 

 found is that the hours of work are so long that one does not usually have 

 enough time to sleep. The food, if rough, is good : beef, bread, pork, 



