I wanted to cut the rope between the Jersey cow and the Hereford cow and let them run free. The terrain was rough and almost completely covered with trees and cedar bushes. I prepared my catch rope and made one desperate attempt to rope one of the cows. I threw the loop and it went over one horn of the Hereford. I knew the herd would vanish into the brush before I could get ready and try again. So I jumped to the ground and tried to flip the rope around the other horn also. I had hoped to delay them long enough to rush in and cut the rope between them. But I had no such luck. My throw rope came off the one horn and they quickly disappeared into the thick brush. They were all gone, vanished into the bushes. I looked for Old Buck and he was gone too. Then I looked for Lester and he was nowhere in sight. I called to him and he came riding up out of the brush. I asked if he had seen Old Buck. He hadn't, but he rode off to find him. We found Old Buck working alone and holding back a bunch of cows that were trying to run away. There were two ways for the herd to escape. Lester had gone one way and had tried to hold the cows back, but had failed. Old Buck had gone the other way alone and had cut off the escape route of the other half of the herd. Not a single cow had gotten by him, but the two cows we wanted had escaped down the way Lester had gone. I could write a book telling about the splendid work Old Buck did for me while we were together. Anyway, we fastened the fence wires back in place and were riding toward home when night overtook us out on the highway. After dark some men from our community drove by in their car, recognized us, offered to take us home and we accepted. We still had only one rope, so we staked out Old Buck as we had done the night before and hoped that Nancy would stay with him one more night. Needless to say, when I got home I ate everything I could get my hands on. I was hungry enough to eat anything that wouldn't fight back and couldn't outrun me. And my bed was so much better than the one that had tortured me the night before.