y, a flight of buzzards were circling around in anticipation of the
coming feast.

Another day had been lost, and still the South Canadian defied us. We
drifted the cattle back to the previous night camp, using the same bed
ground for our herd. It was then that The Rebel broached the subject
of a crossing at the island which we had examined that morning, and
offered to show it to our foreman by daybreak. We put two extra horses
on picket that night, and the next morning, before the sun was half an
hour high, the foreman and The Rebel had returned from the island down
the river with word that we were to give the ford a trial, though we
could not cross the wagon there. Accordingly we grazed the herd down
the river and came opposite the island near the middle of the
forenoon. As usual, we cut off about one hundred of the lead cattle,
the leaders naturally being the heaviest, and started them into the
water. We reached the island and scaled the farther bank without a
single animal losing his footing. We brought up a second bunch of
double, and a third of triple the number of the first, and crossed
them with safety, but as yet the Canadian was dallying with us. As we
crossed each successive bunch, the tramping of the cattle increasingly
agitated the sands, and when we had the herd about half over, we
bogged our first steer on the farther landing. As the water was so
shallow that drowning was out of the question, we went back and
trailed in the remainder of the herd, knowing the bogged steer would
be there when we were ready for him, The island was about two hundred
yards long by twenty wide, lying up and down the river, and in leaving
it for the farther bank, we always pushed off at the upper end. But
now, in trailing the remainder of the cattle over, we attempted to
force them into the water at the lower end, as the footing at that
point of this middle ground had not, as yet, been trampled up as had
the upper end. Everything worked nicely until the rear guard of the
last five or six hundred congested on the island, the outfit being
scattered on both sides of the river as well as in the middle, leaving
a scarcity of men at all points. When the final rear guard had reached
the river the cattle were striking out for the farther shore from
every quarter of the island at their own sweet will, stopping to drink
and loitering on the farther side, for there was no one to hustle them
out.

All were over at last, and we were on the