other storm
was breeding that they did not dream of. For over beyond, in a gully,
the sheepmen were gathered. And each man carried a white garment, like
those you may have seen pictured as worn by the old raiders of the
South--the Ku-Klux Klan. They were waiting only for the lightning to
become blinding, the thunder to become deafening.

And when the electrical storm was at its height, you will know what
happened when those white-clad figures went among the thousands of
range-bred beasts, guarded by a pitiful handful of men. For range cattle
are accustomed to a man only when he is mounted; then he is a part of
his horse. It is dangerous for him to go among them on foot; then he is
a strange animal. Many a cowboy has dismounted, rescued a steer from the
mire--and had to run for his life. Thus were those white-clad figures
doubly monstrous and terrifying to the herd.

You may have thought that the cowboy wears his revolver for protection
against his human enemies, but it is rather for a protection of the
cattle against themselves in that strange panic known as a "stampede."
Whitey and Injun, riding near the edge of the herd, and bowing against
the fury of the storm, did not need Buck Milton's hoarse shouts of
warning to make them swing aside. They were helpless to aid in diverting
the mass of maddened animals that swung toward them, and galloping their
horses to a point of safety, they turned in their saddles and viewed the
strange sight.

Lighted by the almost continuous flashes of the lightning, the
bellowing, thundering herd crashed by.... Far behind it, and in safety,
were the white figures of the men who had caused the panic, sneaking off
into the night. They had been seen by the Star Circle riders, but there
was no time to think of them now. At the head of the herd, Whitey could
see two men, their horses set at a mad run. Buck Milton was one, and the
other a dare-devil young fellow named Tom, who was Buck's closest
friend.

And as Buck and Tom rode, Whitey could see them firing their guns
almost in the faces of the foremost maddened steers. They were trying to
divert the leaders, and thus turn the herd until it would circle in its
course, and finally the entire mass of beasts would be running round and
round, in a course known as "milling." And there Whitey learned the real
use the cowboy has for his gun.

What was going on beyond, Whitey could not see, and he could hear
nothing above the uproar of the storm,