its
efforts to stir up a little life and excitement in so dull a crowd;
Johnny hoped to be as successful in his mischievous deviltry when he
reached the town at the end of the drive.

But to-night it was dark, and the bummer gained his coveted goal with
ridiculous ease, after which he started right in to work off the high
pressure of the energy he had accumulated during the last two nights.
He had desisted in his efforts to gain the herd early in the evening and
had rambled off and rested during the first part of the night, and the
herders breathed softly lest they should stir him to renewed trials. But
now he had succeeded, and although only Johnny had seen him lumber past,
the other three guards were aware of it immediately by the results and
swore in their throats, for the cattle were now on their feet, snorting
and moving about restlessly, and the rattling of horns grew slowly
louder.

"Ain't he having a devil of a good time!" grinned Johnny. But it was not
long before he realized the possibilities of the bummer's efforts and
he lost his grin. "If we get through the night without trouble I'll see
that you are picketed if it takes me all day to get you," he muttered.
"Fun is fun, but it's getting a little too serious for comfort."

Sometime after the middle of the second shift the herd, already
irritable, nervous, and cranky because of the thirst they were enduring,
and worked up to the fever pitch by the devilish manoeuvres of the
exuberant and hard-working bummer, wanted only the flimsiest kind of
an excuse to stampede, and they might go without an excuse. A flash
of lightning, a crash of thunder, a wind-blown paper, a flapping wagon
cover, the sudden and unheralded approach of a careless rider, the
cracking and flare of a match, or the scent of a wolf or coyote--or
water, would send an avalanche of three thousand crazed steers crashing
its irresistible way over a pitch-black plain.

Red had warned Pete and Billy, and now he rode to find Johnny and send
him to camp for the others. As he got halfway around the circle he heard
Johnny singing a mournful lay, and soon a black bulk loomed up in the
dark ahead of him. "That you, Kid?" he asked. "That you, Johnny?" he
repeated, a little louder.

The song stopped abruptly. "Shore," replied Johnny. "We're going to
have trouble aplenty to-night. Glad daylight ain't so very far off. That
cussed li'l rake of a bummer got by me an' into the herd. He's shore
raising Ned t