tand watch before awakening the nest man. He placed the watch is a
pocket, shook the reins over Streak's neck and spoke to him.

"Seems like old times to be ridin' night-watch, eh, Streak?" he said.

The words had hardly escaped his lips when there arose a commotion from
the edge of the herd nearest the corrugated land that lay between the
herd and the trail back to the Double A.

On a ridge near the cattle a huge, black, grotesque shape was clearly
outlined. It was waving to and fro, as though it were some
giant-winged monster of the night trying to rise from the earth.
Sanderson could hear the flapping noise it made; it carried to him with
the sharp resonance of a pistol shot.

"Damnation!" he heard himself say. "Some damned fool is wavin' a tarp!"

He jerked Streak up shortly, intending to ride for the point where the
tarpaulin was being waved before it was too late. But as he wheeled
Streak he realized that the havoc had been wrought, for the cattle
nearest him were on their feet, snorting with fright--a sensation that
had been communicated to them by contact with their fellows in the mass.

At the point where the commotion had occurred was confusion. Sanderson
saw steers rising on their hind legs, throwing their forelegs high in
the air; they were bellowing their fright and charging against the
steers nearest them, frenziedly trying to escape the danger that seemed
to menace them.

Sanderson groaned, for the entire herd was on the move! Near at hand a
dozen steers shot out of the press and lumbered past him, paying no
attention to his shouts. He fired his pistol in the face of one, and
though the animal tried to turn back, frightened by the flash, the
press of numbers behind it, already moving forward, forced it again to
wheel and break for freedom.

Sanderson heard the sounds of pistol shots from the direction of the
camp fire; he heard other shots from the direction of the back trail;
he saw the forms of men on horses darting here and there on the
opposite side of the herd from where he rode.

From the left side of the herd came another rider--Soapy. He tore
ahead of the vanguard of running steers, shooting his pistol in their
faces, shouting profanely at them, lashing them with his quirt.

A first batch slipped by him. He spurred his horse close to
Sanderson--who was trying to head off still others of the herd that
were determined to follow the first--and cursed loudly:

"Who in hell waved t