But why, as he crouched beside her, holding her down, stifling her voice, did he, too, look with eyes fixed where those of the plunging horse just had been, toward the edge of the thicket? “Hush!” She heard his voice, though he kept his head up. “Don’t call out! Where is the little trunk? Have you got it?” She nodded, under his stifling hand, or would have done so. “You thief!” she tried to say. “Oh, God curse you!” For now she felt her sentence had been just. “Oh, you thief!” she said, or thought she said. But though again she writhed and tried to call, no sound came save the hard whistling of her nostrils, coveting air. Then she almost tore free—did tear free. Crouching almost over her, his body above hers, one hand holding her down, suddenly she saw him go to one knee, saw a move of his free arm. Her eardrums were almost shattered by a double explosion just above her head. He had fired at something in the dark. Came medley of night alarm—horses snorting, men calling. Taisie’s senses could give no sequence to all the varied sounds. She caught the rush of hoofs toward the mesquite, thought that her horse had been stolen; heard a man’s scream in the night, where she supposed the thief had shot one of her own men. But concurrently she heard another sound, one which terrified every man who also heard it—the rumble and thunder of four thousand cattle, wakened by vague terror. The sounds of shots in the night were not usual, not understood by them, hence ominous of ill. Jumping to their feet, addled by the slumber in their eyes, their tails high and rolling, their horns rattling, the herd by instinct turned in the direction opposite the sounds of terror. Then, swayed by the one blind instinct left to them, they broke. Two of the night watch, caught by the storm of horns, were pushed away, barely keeping ahead in the night. The dreaded run was on. In the night was no peace at all. No, nor peace in this girl’s soul. * * * * * With the first burst of the herd every man in the camp was on his feet and hurrying for his night horse. Each knew what to do. There was no oriflamme, but the ominous roll and clack ahead made command, guidance. The one thing was to ride. The first salvation for any man meant leaving everything to the horse. To check or attempt to guide him meant death. Of better night sight than his rider, and no more eager than he to be trampled into a bloody pulp, the horse would put out unasked his limit of speed and care of footing. Trust him, also, to edge ahead or outside of any enveloping part of the herd.