'Like enough,' replied Dick, 'for there is, maybe, some little feed up that way; but you had better turn them, if you can, we don't want to lose any that way.' 'What way, Dick?' 'Why, if they get on the line the train may catch them before we do, and the C.P.R. won't stop for a beast or two; the "cow-catcher"' (a great iron fender in front of the engine) 'will just pick them up and chuck them off the rails in heaps.' 'The deuce,' muttered Snap, 'then I'd better go; the boys are out, and if the silly brutes go on as they are going now they'll just about get on to the line by the time the passenger train comes along.' So saying, Snap threw his big Mexican saddle on his pony and started in pursuit, although it was already late in the day. It soon became evident that his guess had been a correct one. He had lost sight of the beasts for a while, it is true, as they had passed through a thin belt of timber which temporarily hid them from him, but their tracks led straight on for the line. Still, there was lots of time, and, after all, the cattle would not be such fools, he thought, as to climb on to the line itself, where, of course, there could be no feed. But they did. When Snap next saw them there were about two dozen beasts wandering aimlessly up 'the track' itself, towards the great trestle-bridge which spans the canyon (or gully) of the 'Elk Horn Crik.' The line here runs along a cutting in a hillside, and Snap, leaving his pony below, climbed painfully up to the level of the line. Once up there, his work was only begun. Do all that he would, he could not get the beasts to leave their perilous pathway. They would not let him get up to them, but steadily jogged on in front of him towards the trestle-bridge. Having tried in vain to get round them, Snap looked at his watch. He had still nearly twenty minutes to spare before the train was due. If he could run the brutes up to the trestle-bridge they would never try to cross that, and he would be able to turn them down the bank, which, terribly steep as it was, was in places just practicable for the sure-footed, prairie-reared cattle. So he pressed on, driving the cattle against time, as the dark grew ever darker, and the train nearer and nearer to the bridge. At last he thought as he ran that he could hear it far away in the hills, a low, distant, rattling noise, heard plainly for a moment, and then lost again as some high ground was brought by a twist of the line between him and it. The trestle-bridge, however, was in sight, and in another minute he had the satisfaction of seeing the stupid beasts trot up to it, stop, and then, first one, then another, turned and scrambled in headlong fashion down the bank. All except one. One perverse brute, a thorough Texan, 'all horns and tail,' would not follow his companions, but elected to try the bridge.