Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-upGrinnell, George Bird
General
Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up
Grinnell, George Bird
Cowboys -- Juvenile fiction; Western stories
"I was following along not far behind you, Jack," said Mason. "You were
advertising your place by shooting and hollering, and I was trying hard
to get up to you, to try to help push over the lead cattle and get 'em
turned. All of a sudden, though, your light seemed to go out. There
were no more shots and no more yells, and I made up my mind something
had happened to put you out of business. Before very long I got up to
the leaders and managed to crowd 'em over and over until at last I got
'em running in a circle, and then before long, of course, the circle
got smaller and smaller until they all got packed together and then
they had to stop. They didn't get very far beyond where you left 'em,
not more than a mile and a half, I should think, and I didn't have any
trouble holding 'em there until daylight; and soon after that the boys
came up, and here we are again. But what happened to you? I suppose
your horse fell, because he was with the cattle when day come. One of
the boys has got him there now."
Jack told again of his fall, and as before the story was laughed at and
he was congratulated on his escape.
"Well," said McIntyre, as the party got into camp, "we seem to be
anchored to this place. We'd better move to-day. You boys go out and
ride a short circle and we'll camp to-night over on Sand Creek."
That night in camp the talk was all of stampedes; there was the usual
speculation as to what caused them, and all agreed that no one could
tell why cattle stampeded.
Jack Mason was asked whether anything had happened to start the cattle,
so far as he could see, and both he and Donald declared that they knew
of nothing that could have alarmed the cattle.
"I saw something funny a number of years ago, down on the prairie,"
said Hugh. "I was working for Cody and North, on the Dismal River,
and one time when we were taking some beeves into town south of the
range, near Cottonwood Creek, these beeves stampeded. It was a bright
moonlight night, and you could see quite a long way. I had been riding
around the beeves and had stopped my horse and was sitting quiet on
him, watching the cattle, when, suddenly, a little off to one side,
I saw an antelope. He must have seen me about the same time and have
wondered what I was. He trotted up pretty near me and then trotted
away again, and made a circle and came around near the cattle, and
when he got pretty close to 'em he whistled, and away the beeves went.
It didn't take 'em half a minute to get started, and they were headed
straight toward the tent and the wagon. I crowded 'em off so that they
missed the wagon. They were not much frightened, and ran only a little
way. I suppose they were just startled for a minute."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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