ts own
weight in a minute's time until it would have to be burrowed out
again. To avoid this we had to coil up the tails and tie them with a
soft rope hobble.

Fortunately none of the cattle were over forty feet from the bank, and
when our heavy rope arrived we divided into two gangs and began the
work of rescue. We first took a heavy rope from the animal's horns to
solid footing on the river bank, and tied to this five or six of our
lariats. Meanwhile others rolled a steer over as far as possible and
began burrowing with their hands down alongside a fore and hind leg
simultaneously until they could pass a small rope around the pastern
above the cloof, or better yet through the cloven in the hoof, when
the leg could be readily lifted by two men. We could not stop
burrowing, however, for a moment, or the space would fill and
solidify. Once a leg was freed, we doubled it back short and securely
tied it with a hobble, and when the fore and hind leg were thus
secured, we turned the animal over on that side and released the other
legs in a similar manner. Then we hastened out of the water and into
our saddles, and wrapped the loose end of our ropes to the pommels,
having already tied the lariats to the heavy corral rope from the
animal's horns. When the word was given, we took a good swinging
start, and unless something gave way there was one steer less in the
hog. After we had landed the animal high and dry on the bank, it was
but a minute's work to free the rope and untie the hobbles. Then it
was advisable to get into the saddle with little loss of time and give
him a wide berth, for he generally arose angry and sullen.

It was dark before we got the last of the bogged cattle out and
retraced our way to camp from the first river on the trip that had
turned us. But we were not the least discouraged, for we felt certain
there was a ford that had a bottom somewhere within a few miles, and
we could hunt it up on the morrow. The next one, however, we would try
before we put the cattle in. There was no question that the
treacherous condition of the river was due to the recent freshet,
which had brought down new deposits of sediment and had agitated the
old, even to changing the channel of the river, so that it had not as
yet had sufficient time to settle and solidify.

The next morning after breakfast, Flood and two or three of the boys
set out up the river, while an equal number of us started, under the
leadership of The Re