On rare occasions something happened that
made the cattle stampede, and then the duty of the riders was to keep
with them as long as possible and try gradually to get control of them.
One night there was a heavy storm, and all of us who were at the wagons
were obliged to turn out hastily to help the night herders. After a
while there was a terrific peal of thunder, the lightning struck right
by the herd, and away all the beasts went, heads and horns and tails in
the air. For a minute or two I could make out nothing except the dark
forms of the beasts running on every side of me, and I should have been
very sorry if my horse had stumbled, for those behind would have trodden
me down. Then the herd split, part going to one side, while the other
part seemingly kept straight ahead, and I galloped as hard as ever
beside them. I was trying to reach the point--the leading animals--in
order to turn them, when suddenly there was a tremendous splashing in
front. I could dimly make out that the cattle immediately ahead and to
one side of me were disappearing, and the next moment the horse and I
went off a cut bank into the Little Missouri. I bent away back in the
saddle, and though the horse almost went down he just recovered himself,
and, plunging and struggling through water and quicksand, we made the
other side.
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