is horse till it leaped, straining, with outstretched legs,
he charged the head of the rushing column again, and bending low fired
his revolver close over their heads. Again they swerved a little to
the right, and dashing past the foremost point he sent a pistol ball
into the eye of the leader. It fell, struggling, and with a sudden
jerk he swung the horse round on its hind legs and struck home the
spurs for a quick, long leap, for he was directly in the front of the
racing herd. As the horse's fore feet came down on the wet earth it
slipped, and fell to its knees, scrambled an instant and was up
again, and leaped to one side with a bleeding flank, torn by the horns
of the leading steer. The startled animals had made a more decided
turn to the right, and by scarcely more than a hand's breadth horse
and rider had escaped their hoofs. The crazy, maddened creatures
slackened their pace and the outermost ones and those in the rear
began to drop off, one by one, grazing and tailing off behind in a
straggling procession. Another rush, and Mead had the mob of cattle,
half turned back on itself, struggling, twisting and turning in a
bewildered mass. The stampeding impulse had been checked, but the
senseless brutes were not yet subdued to their usual state.

Glancing down the hill to the clump of trees, he saw men rushing about
and horses being saddled. Shouting and yelling, he rushed again at the
turned flank of his herd, firing his pistol under their noses, forcing
the leaders this time to turn tail completely and trot toward the rear
of the band. The rest followed, and with another furious yell he
swerved them again to the right and forced them into a circle, a sort
of endless chain of cattle, trotting round and round. He knew they
would keep up that motion until they were thoroughly subdued and
restored to their senses, and would then scatter over the hillside to
graze.

He had conquered the crazy herd of cattle, but four horsemen were
galloping up the hill, and he knew they were part of the Fillmore
Company's outfit. He reloaded his revolver, put it in its holster,
and rode a little way toward them. Then he checked his horse and
waited, with his back to the "milling" herd, for them to come near
enough to hail. Through the lances of the rain he could see that
one of the men was Jim Halliday, the deputy sheriff from Las Plumas,
who had arrested him on the night of the mass-meeting. Another he
recognized as the Fillmore Comp