They stretched themselves on the ground and almost instantly fell asleep. But it was not long before Conrad, rousing suddenly, sprang to his feet, realizing even before he was fairly awake that the cattle were stampeding. From down the hill came a thundering, rushing sound, the noise of hundreds of hoofs pounding the ground. He called his foreman, seized his saddle, and rushed to the bunch of tethered cow-ponies, Peters, Texas Bill, Red Jack, and José Gonzalez close behind. As they dashed after the flying herd Curtis could see in the dim light the figure of the cowboy who had been patrolling the sleeping cattle. He was following the stampede at what his employer thought a leisurely pace. "Who was riding herd?" he yelled to Peters, who replied, "Andy Miller." "Is he trying to drive them farther away?" Conrad muttered angrily, pressing home his spur. The cattle tore wildly down the hill, but at its foot their leaders turned up the course of the dry shallow valley instead of pressing up the other side. The men saw the movement, and by cutting across the hillside gained rapidly upon the fleeing animals. As they passed Andy Miller, Curtis shouted to him that he might return to the camp, as they should not need him. The draw soon began to grow deeper and narrower, and the dense mass of cattle was forced to lessen its pace. Conrad remembered that farther on the valley came to an abrupt end against a steep rise. If the brutes stayed in it a little longer they would not be able to get out, and when they came to the end of this blind alley of the hills they would have to stop. So he and his companions galloped easily along beside the shadowy stream of moving backs with its spray of tossing horns that filled the draw, and presently found the leaders, their heads to the bluff, chewing their cuds as quietly as if they had never been frightened in all their lives. As they rode back to camp behind the staidly moving herd, Conrad asked Peters if he knew what caused the stampede. The foreman did not know, he had been sound asleep when it began. But he went on to tell an excited tale of mysterious accidents that had followed close upon one another ever since the morning of the superintendent's departure. Only the edge of the sand-storm through which he had ridden touched them, though it had kept them in camp all day. Nevertheless, there had been two stampedes, and they had had much trouble getting the brutes together again. Every day since there had been at least one stampede of the herd. He and the others had been kept busy gathering in the flying cattle. This was why they had got no farther than Five Cottonwoods. It seemed as if the devil himself had taken possession of every cow-brute on the range; never in all his years as a cow-puncher had he had such a time. "Don't you know what starts them?"