d excitement and
you must ride hard at your level best, and look out you don't get
knocked over and perhaps fatally trampled on. You must know your
business and work on one plan with your fellow-herders. On a pitch dark
night in a rough country it is very dangerous indeed. The cattle may
run only a short distance or they may run ten miles, and after being
quieted again may once more stampede. Indeed, I took a herd once to
Amarillo and they stampeded the first night on the trail and kept it up
pretty near every night during the drive. But, as said before, the
remarkable part of the performance is the instantaneous nature of the
shock or whatever it is that goes through the slumbering herd, and the
quickness of their getting off the bed-ground. Cow and calf herds are
not so liable to stampede, but horses are distinctly bad and will run
for miles at terrific speed. Then you must just try and stay with them
and bring them back when they stop, as you can hardly expect to outrun
them. Still, I do not think that stampeded horses are quite so crazy as
cattle, and they get over their fright quicker.

Let me try to illustrate a little better an actual stampede. The night
was calm, clear, but very dark--no moon, and the stars dimmed by fleecy
cloud strata. The herd of some 2000 steers was bedded down, and had so
far given no trouble. Supper was over and the first guard on duty, the
rest of the men lying on their beds chatting and smoking. Each man while
not on duty has his saddled horse staked close by. Soon everyone has
turned in for the night. A couple of hours later the first guard come
in, their spell being over, and the second relief takes their place.
The cattle are quiet; not a sound breaks the silence except the low
crooning of some of the boys on duty. But suddenly, what is that
noise?--like the distant rumbling of guns on the march, or of a heavy
train crossing a wooden bridge! To one with his head on the ground the
earth seems almost to tremble. Oh, we know it well! It is the beating of
8000 hoofs on the hard ground. The cowboy recognizes the dreaded sound
instantly: it wakens him quicker than anything else. The boss is already
in his saddle, has summoned the other men, and is off at full gallop.
The cook gets up, re-trims his lamp, and hangs it as high on the wagon
top as he can, to be visible as far as possible. It is good two miles
before we catch up on the stampeded herd, still going at a mad gallop.
The men are on