nown.

Several times we experienced this strange exhibition of sudden panic;
the snapping, as it were, of the nerves, from undue tension, when,
instantly, from cause then to us unknown and unguessed, the whole band
of cattle, teams as well as loose stock, made a sudden, wild, furious
dash, in a compact mass; seeming instinctively to follow in whatever
direction the leader's impulse led him; drifting together and forward
as naturally as water flows to the current; with heads and tails high
in air; blindly trampling to the earth whatever chanced to be in their
path.

These were not in any sense wild stock. The cattle, horses and mules
were all animals that had been raised on the quiet farms of the Middle
West, well domesticated.

In the light of certain modern theories it might be said by some that
these otherwise docile animals stampeded on the unpeopled plains
because they heard the "call of the wild." There were, however,
occasions when the cause could be readily assigned for this temporary
casting off of restraint.

In one instance, already mentioned, a sudden, pelting hailstorm was
the undoubted cause; when, taking the stampede temper, they ran five
or six miles before the man, mounted on one of our fleetest
saddle-horses, got in front of the foremost of them and checked their
running.

On all such occasions control could be regained in only one way.
Speeding his horse till he overtook and passed the leader of the drove
the rider made his horse the leader; and as each loose animal always
followed whatever was in front, the horseman, by making a circuit and
gradually slackening the pace, led the drove around and back to place
in the line of travel.

Naturally one source of uneasiness was the thought of what our
situation would be if, on one of these occasions, we should fail to
regain control of these animals, so necessary to us in continuing the
westward journey. A stampede when some of the oxen were yoked to the
wagons was, of course, more serious in its immediate consequences than
when it happened while all were detached from the equipment.

A stampede occurred one day in a level stretch of country, open in
every direction; nothing in sight to cause alarm. There the emigrant
road showed plainly before us. The wagons were in open single file,
the loose stock drawn out in line at the rear. Men on horseback, hats
over their eyes, some of them with one leg curled over the pommel of
the saddle; lazily droning