Sometimes when the tired, relieved guards are sleeping with their ponies at their sides, the herd stampedes, and before they can get into the saddle the pony escapes and the cattle rush madly over them, trampling them into the sand. I recollect of camping close to a large herd of Texas steers one cold November night, when the rain fell fast, and the lightning played upon the cattle’s horns like morning sunbeams upon the mountain-top, and lighted up the plain almost like day. The boys held them for some time; but at length the ponies became worried, and away went the steers, their trampling sounding like distant thunder. The boys all rushed for the front, and after about a mile chase, in which I joined, one of the boys dashed in front of the herd. In the darkness of the night and the excitement of the occasion he had forgotten a dangerous slough that lay in that direction, and his excited pony sprung into the mire. Of course the first jump the horse sunk deeply into the mud and could not extricate himself, nor could the rider get away before the maddened herd plunged in upon him. The pony with its rider was crushed into the mud and buried alive before our eyes, and the cattle struggling in the mud above them. The next morning we took ropes and pulled some of the steers from the bog with the saddle-horn; but some were smothered in the mire with the good pony and gallant rider, whom we left in their novel graves, knowing that they were dead anyhow, and thinking that perhaps their self-made tombs were as respectable as any we could hew.