utmost, the brave fellow sat in his saddle, swinging his arms about his
head, and no doubt shouting at the top of his voice to stop the advance
of the frightened herd, which was bearing down upon him with the
resistless power of an avalanche.

"The man is crazy!" cried George in great alarm. Then, raising both
hands to his face and using them as a speaking-trumpet, he yelled, with
all the power of his lungs,

"Run! run for your life!"

Phillips afterward said that he did not hear what George said to him--in
fact, he couldn't hear anything but the noise of those hoofs--but,
seeing that if he remained where he was his death was certain, he
wheeled his horse and fled with the speed of the wind. The last his
friends saw of him was as he dashed over the top of a ridge, with the
stampeded cattle close behind him. When they were all out of sight and
the rumble of their hoofs had died away in the distance, the troopers
turned to look at Mr. Wentworth. He stood with his hands in his pockets
gazing disconsolately in the direction in which the herd had
disappeared, but had nothing to say.

"Now, here's a go!" whispered Bob, giving George a nudge in the ribs
with his elbow. "What am I to do? This is something Captain Clinton
didn't think to provide for, isn't it? I was ordered to go to Holmes's
ranche with Mr. Wentworth, but I wasn't told to follow up and collect
his cattle if they were stampeded."

"You mustn't think of following them up," said George decidedly. "There
is no man in the world who could get that same herd together again, for
it will join others as soon as it gets over its fright; and how could we
tell these cattle from others bearing the same brand? They are gone, and
that's all there is of it. You must mount at once and see if you can
find anything of Phillips."

"All right!--Mr. Wentworth," said Bob, "we are very sorry for the loss
you have sustained, but we have done all we could for you."

"I know it, corporal, and I am very grateful to you and to the captain,
who was kind enough to send you with me. Such things as these will
happen sometimes, in spite of everything. Now I hardly know what to do."

Neither would anybody else have known what to do under the same
circumstances. Mr. Wentworth had no home, no property except his rifle
and the horses he and his boys rode, no work to do, and but little to
eat in his haversack. It was a trying situation for a man who but a few
days before had been worth a fort