might almost be grasped in the
hands, torn down and thrown away. Mead could not see the horse's head,
so, letting the reins lie loosely on its neck, he allowed the animal
to pick its own way around the circle.

The cattle began to show signs of nervousness, and from the huddled
mass there came sounds of uneasy movements. Mead urged his horse into
a quicker walk and with one leg over its neck as they went round and
round the herd, he sang to them in a crooning monotone, like a
mother's lullaby to a babe that is just dropping into dreamland. It
quieted the incipient disturbance, the rumbling thunder ceased for a
time, and after a little moving about the cattle settled down to sleep
again.

Suddenly, without forerunner or warning, a vivid flash of lightning
cleft the clouds and a roar of thunder rattled and boomed from the
mountain peaks. And on the instant, as one animal, hurled by sudden
fright, the whole band of cattle was on its feet and plunging forward.
There was a snorting breath, a second of muffled noise as they sprang
to their feet, and the whole stampeded herd was rushing pell-mell
into the darkness. They chanced to head toward Mead, and he, idling
along with one leg over his saddle horn, with a quick jab of the spur
sent his pony in a long, quick leap to one side, barely in time to
escape their maddened rush. A second's delay and he and his horse
would have been thrown down by the sheer overpowering mass of the
frenzied creatures and trampled under their hoofs, for the horn of a
plunging steer tore the leg of his overalls as the mad animals passed.
Away went the herd, silent, through the dense blackness of the night,
running at the top of their speed. And Mead, spurring his horse, was
after them without a moment's loss of time, galloping close beside the
frightened beasts, alertly watchful lest they might suddenly change
their course and trample him down. They ran in a close mass, straight
ahead, paying heed to nothing, beating under their hoofs whatever
stood in their way.

They rushed crazily on through the darkness which was so intense that
Mead's face seemed to cleave it as the head cleaves water when one
dives. He galloped so close to the running band that by reaching out
one arm he could almost touch one or another heaving side. But he
could see nothing, not a tossing horn nor a lumbering back of the
whole three hundred steers, except when an occasional flash of
lightning gave him a second's half-bli