“Hello!” exclaimed Dig suddenly. “What’s been digging up the prairie in that way? Why, Chet! did you ever see the like?” “Yes, I have,” returned his chum. “You know, when I went to Benway with father that time, we travelled for a week with a herd.” “A herd? Cattle, do you mean?” exclaimed Dig. “Yes.” “You don’t mean to say this is a cattle trail?” demanded the other boy, drawing the black horse to a stop at the edge of a wide track in the sodded land, and gazing at it wonderingly. “That’s what it is. More than twice as wide as the street we live in, Dig. See how the cattle’s sharp hoofs have cut it up? The herd we were with was a great sight. The column was a mile long, the cattle trotting along as they pleased, and seemingly of their own accord.” “But didn’t the cowpunchers hurry ’em on, and crack their quirts and shoot guns to hurry them and all that?” “Of course not,” said Chet, with disgust. “How much fat would there be left on a steer, do you suppose, if they were treated that way on the trail? I didn’t see a man carrying a whip, and we rode with them nearly a week. “Everything was quiet; nobody shouted; nobody seemed to bother the cattle at all.” “But there must have been lots of cowpunchers on hand, so that if the cattle stampeded—” Dig urged. “There weren’t but eleven men with that herd,” Chet told him. “I tried to find out all about the herd and how they handled them. You see, the men in the lead were called ‘point men,’ those riding along the sides of the herd were the ‘swing men’ and the one who brought up the rear was the ‘drag man.’ “In addition, there was the cook, who drove the chuck wagon, and the horse wrangler, who had charge of the remuda of a hundred and fifty ponies. ‘Remuda’ means relay, you know.” “Ugh-huh!” grunted Dig. “But didn’t they stop to graze? Why, according to this trail, the cattle went right through the finest kind of grass without taking a bite.” “This was a big herd,” said Chet, eying the cut-up sod seriously. “But, of course, they grazed. The way they did it when father and I travelled with them was this: An hour before noon one of the point men whistled and the whole column of beeves turned aside and went to grazing. They called it ‘throwing the herd off the trail to graze.’” “Great!” exclaimed his chum. “When it was time to start on, the men gathered them, got them headed right, and all settled into the trail again.” “But how about the nights, Chet?” inquired Digby. “How could eleven men handle such a large herd?” “Why,” said Chet, “they threw the herd off the trail to graze and to water just the same. The men were divided into watches, something like the watches at sea. Those on watch rode around and around the herd. If the cattle were uneasy they sang.” Dig chuckled. “Sang what?” he asked. “‘Rock-a-bye-baby’ and the like?”