There was proof of the theory that in some circumstances domestic animals acquire some of that feeling that human creatures know, when far from the habitations of man. There is a peculiar sensation in the great and boundless contiguity of empty silence which works the senses up to a feeling that is somewhat alike in man and beast--that there is most comfort and protection near the center of the settlement or camp. In this stillness of the night--and night on these plains was often very still--any slight noise outside the camp startled and thrilled the taut nerves. Not only was the night still; usually it was silent, too. But occasionally, when the silence was absolute, a couple or more of prairie-wolves lurking in the vicinity, without the faintest note of prelude, would startle the calm of night with their peculiar commingling of barks, howls and wails,--a racket all their own. It was the habit of these night prowlers of the desert to come as near to the camp as their acute sense of safety permitted, and there, sitting on their haunches, their noses pointed to the moon, render a serenade that was truly thrilling. Two prairie-wolves, in a fugued duet, can emit more disquieting noise, with a less proportion of harmony, than any aggregation of several times their equal in numbers, not excepting Indians on the war-path or a "gutter" band. [Illustration: A coyote serenade] That awe of the wilderness to which reference has been made, and its effect on the nerves, may explain the stampede of cattle, often not otherwise accounted for; which occurs sometimes in these hollow solitudes. It occurs nowhere else that I have known. Several times we experienced this strange exhibition of sudden panic; the snapping, as it were, of the nerves, from undue tension, when, instantly, from cause then to us unknown and unguessed, the whole band of cattle, teams as well as loose stock, made a sudden, wild, furious dash, in a compact mass; seeming instinctively to follow in whatever direction the leader's impulse led him; drifting together and forward as naturally as water flows to the current; with heads and tails high in air; blindly trampling to the earth whatever chanced to be in their path. These were not in any sense wild stock. The cattle, horses and mules were all animals that had been raised on the quiet farms of the Middle West, well domesticated. In the light of certain modern theories it might be said by some that these otherwise docile animals stampeded on the unpeopled plains because they heard the "call of the wild." There were, however, occasions when the cause could be readily assigned for this temporary casting off of restraint. In one instance, already mentioned, a sudden, pelting hailstorm was the undoubted cause; when, taking the stampede temper, they ran five or six miles before the man, mounted on one of our fleetest saddle-horses, got in front of the foremost of them and checked their running.