dness. We were to select a loose place in the circle, the Cardinal and
El Mahdi to force an opening, and the Bay Eagle to go through if she
could.

We waited while the cattle passed, bellowing and thrashing the
water,--an awful mob of steers in panic. Presently in this circle there
was a rift where a bull, infuriated by the crowding, swam by, fighting
to clear a place around him. He was a tremendous creature, glistening
black, active and dangerous as a wild beast. He charged the cattle
around him, driving them back like a battering ram. He dived and butted
and roared like some sea monster gone mad. Ump shouted, and we swam into
the open rift against this bull, Jud leading, and El Mahdi at his
shoulder.

The bull fighting the cattle behind him did not see us until the big
sorrel was against him. Then he swung half around and tried to butt.
This was the danger which we feared most. The ram of a muley steer is
one of the most powerful blows delivered by any animal. For this reason,
no bull with horns is a match for a muley. The driving power of sixteen
hundred pounds of bone and muscle is like the ram of a ship. Striking a
horse fair, it would stave him in as one breaks an egg shell. Jud leaned
down from his horse and struck the bull on the nose with his fist,
beating him in the nostrils. The bull turned and charged the cattle
behind him. We crowded against him, using the mad bull for a great
driving wedge.

I have never seen anything in the world to approach the strength or the
fury of this muley. With him we broke through the circle of steers
forcing into the centre of the eddy. We had barely room for the horses
by crowding shoulder to shoulder to the bull. The cattle closed in
behind us like bees swarming in a hive.

I was accustomed to cattle all my life. I had been among them when they
fought each other, bellowing and tearing up the sod; among them when
they charged; among them when they stampeded; and I was not afraid. But
this caldron of boiling yellow water filled with cattle was a hell-pot.
In it every steer, gone mad, seemed to be fighting for dear life.

I caught something of the terror of the cattle, and on the instant the
delusion of the cone rising on all sides returned. The cattle seemed to
be swarming down upon us from the sides of this yellow pit. I looked
around. The Bay Eagle was squeezing against El Mahdi. Jud was pressing
close to the nose of the bull, keeping him turned against the cattle by
gre