The day
was hot and a storm was in the air. They found Joe riding up and down,
singing to keep the cattle quiet, but having a hard time to hold the
bunch from breaking. While The Duke was riding around the far side of
the bunch, a cry from Gwen arrested his attention. Joe was in trouble.
His horse, a half-broken cayuse, had stumbled into a badger-hole and had
bolted, leaving Joe to the mercy of the cattle. At once they began to
sniff suspiciously at this phenomenon, a man on foot, and to follow
cautiously on his track. Joe kept his head and walked slowly out, till
all at once a young cow began to bawl and to paw the ground. In another
minute one, and then another of the cattle began to toss their heads and
bunch and bellow till the whole herd of two hundred were after Joe.
Then Joe lost his head and ran. Immediately the whole herd broke into a
thundering gallop with heads and tails aloft and horns rattling like the
loading of a regiment of rifles.
"Two more minutes," said The Duke, "would have done for Joe, for I could
never have reached him; but, in spite of my most frantic warnings and
signalings, right into the face of that mad, bellowing, thundering
mass of steers rode that little girl. Nerve! I have some myself, but I
couldn't have done it. She swung her horse round Joe and sailed out with
him, with the herd bellowing at the tail of her bronco.
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