I soon heard their voices. They proved to be four men on horseback, who (I then suspected) might have caused the rush. Myself a party to the loss of stock, and believing it to be my duty quickly to summon our party, I fired my rifle in advance of the riders. Wishing to make myself appear as numerous as possible, I repeated the challenge with two or three additional shots in rapid succession, and with as firm a voice as I could command called to the riders to halt. To my surprise they did halt. One of the men gruffly asked, "Who are _you_?" Another shouted what seemed rather an incoherent declaration, the tenor of which as I caught it, was in effect that I was shooting at the United States Government. Perhaps it was the darkness and the fact that I was out of their reach that inspired me with sufficient confidence to order them not to proceed further until we could ascertain who they were. The pronoun "we" was used not only to emphasize the authority of the speaker and thereby command respect, but also on the theory that the more numerous I could make myself appear the safer I was likely to be until our boys should arrive in response to the rifle call. As was expected, our men rounded up very quickly, for our campers were not compelled to dress and make an elaborate toilet on receiving a call. A mutual investigation followed, through which we learned that a Government train of which we had no previous knowledge had camped three miles northwest of our trail, and their stock, about 240 in number, had been stampeded through the carelessness or folly of one their own drivers; and the animals were away before their men were prepared to start in pursuit. They had been able to find a few saddle horses which had been picketed and had not escaped in the panic. On being informed very definitely concerning the direction which the flying herd had taken, the riders, after giving the assurance that all of our horses would in time doubtless be returned, started on their hunt. After daybreak they encountered no difficulty in following their course, which was well marked by hoof tracks; and in the forenoon all of our horses were once more at our command, but none the better for their escapade.