After looking back for a moment or two, the deer seemed to feel that there was nothing more to fear from the enemy that had frightened them up the hill. Two or three times they looked at Jack, but neither he nor his horse moved, and after a stare or two the deer looked unconcernedly away. Presently, with a slow, almost slouching, gait, they started to walk on down the ridge toward some underbrush on the hillside; and in doing this they crossed the wind which was blowing from the southeast, and so, in their changed position, blew from Jack to them. As each deer walked into this tainted current it bounded into the air as if shot up by a gigantic spring, and coming down again, the headlong flight was resumed with every appearance of terror. It was not the first time that Jack had seen something of this sort, and Hugh had more than once spoken to him of the effect of the scent of man on wild animals; but to-day Jack wondered at it as much as he had ever done before. The deer had looked squarely at him without recognizing him as anything dangerous or hostile, but the instant that their noses told them that he was there, they raced off in headlong flight. A few more ridges surmounted, and Jack came again upon the little bunch of cattle that he had started in the morning. Though still wild, they did not rush off in the same alarm that they had shown earlier in the day. Above them on the hillside and near the head of the same ravine were other cattle lying on the steep side hill, and Jack, riding up, started them on their way. These animals had evidently just lain down after feeding, and were not at all wild. It seemed probable to Jack that he might have to do some literal cow punching with these logy beasts, and he took them down the hill with him and started them forward about in the line that he was riding. All through the morning this went on, and Jack had gathered forty or fifty head of cattle, while from what he could see on the hillside above him Vicente had a still larger bunch. It was impossible to get any idea of what Joe was doing, because the slope here was too gradual. In the early afternoon it was evident that Vicente had turned his cattle down the hill toward Jack. Many of them showed themselves working down ahead of him, and now and then he could hear the whistles and calls by which Vicente was urging them on. It was not long after this that Vicente was seen hurrying along the hillside up and down, gathering the cattle into a more or less close bunch, and then starting them down a ridge ahead of Jack. A little later, too, Jack began to see cattle coming from his left--from down the hill. He therefore stopped where he was, and getting up on as high a point as possible, looked over the ground to get an idea of the situation. Evidently this had been a pretty fruitful gather, for there must have been more than three hundred cattle brought along by Vicente and by Joe, and as yet it was only a little after noon.