oach and lumbered away
to points of safety. Very few herds had ever passed over this route,
but buffalo trails leading downstream, deep worn by generations of
travel, were to be seen by hundreds on every hand. We were not there
for a change of scenery or for our health, so we may have overlooked
some of the beauties of the landscape. But we had a keen eye for the
things of our craft. We could see almost back to the river, and
several times that morning noticed clouds of dust on the horizon.
Flood noticed them first. After some little time the dust clouds arose
clear and distinct, and we were satisfied that the "Running W" herd
had forded and were behind us, not more than ten or twelve miles away.

At dinner that noon, Flood said he had a notion to go back and pay
Mann a visit. "Why, I've not seen 'Little-foot' Bill Mann," said our
foreman, as he helped himself to a third piece of "fried chicken"
(bacon), "since we separated two years ago up at Ogalalla on the
Platte. I'd just like the best in the world to drop back and sleep in
his blankets one night and complain of his chuck. Then I'd like to
tell him how we had passed them, starting ten days' drive farther
south. He must have been amongst those herds laying over on the
Brazos."

"Why don't you go, then?" said Fox Quarternight. "Half the outfit
could hold the cattle now with the grass and water we're in at
present."

"I'll go you one for luck," said our foreman. "Wrangler, rustle in
your horses the minute you're through eating. I'm going visiting."

We all knew what horse he would ride, and when he dropped his rope on
"Alazanito," he had not only picked his own mount of twelve, but the
top horse of the entire _remuda_,--a chestnut sorrel, fifteen hands
and an inch in height, that drew his first breath on the prairies of
Texas. No man who sat him once could ever forget him. Now, when the
trail is a lost occupation, and reverie and reminiscence carry the
mind back to that day, there are friends and faces that may he
forgotten, but there are horses that never will be. There were
emergencies in which the horse was everything, his rider merely the
accessory. But together, man and horse, they were the force that made
it possible to move the millions of cattle which passed up and over
the various trails of the West.

When we had caught our horses for the afternoon, and Flood had saddled
and was ready to start, he said to us, "You fellows just mosey along
up the trail.