“Sure an’ he did, and that ain’t all. When the baste began to buck again, Bill took off that saddle, while the horse was pitchin’ him, mind ye, and the bridle, too; and then he stuck to him till the bloomin’ baste was glad to quit. And then fer a grandstand finish, he made him climb the ladder up a haystack.” The crowd roared at the extravagant nonsense. Even Noisy gave up, and joined in the fun. “The best ridin’ I ever did see, fer honest,” said Jim, “was when Tim Carter, down on Henry’s Fork, brought Old Panther to time, that roan outlaw of the Diamond C bunch. He stuck to the leapin’ devil like a cocklebur fer a whole hour. You remember it, don’t you, Dan?” “That was good riding,” came Dan’s quiet response; “they were both ready to give up, but Tim won out at last.” “He was a bully roper, too,” added Jim, “‘specially when he was on Old Buck. That old yaller horse had more sense than most men. The way he’d hold a big steer was a caution. Wonder where Tim is now.” “Loafing round a Denver hospital last I heard,” returned Dan; “steers got him at last.” “How?” “Didn’t you hear how he was trampled in a stampede down on Bitter Creek?” “Nary a word; how did it happen?” “Well, he came nearly ending his trail there. He would have done it if Old Buck hadn’t saved him.” “Tell us about it,” urged Fred, as Dan paused. The crowd were all eager to hear Dan talk. “There isn’t much to tell,” he went on quietly; “it was just a regular stampede. We were trailing a bunch of longhorns through to Montana and one night we had them rounded up on a sagebrush flat down in the Green River country. Tim and I were taking night shift. The sky was clear enough in early evening; but ’long ’bout ten o’clock it had got black with thunder clouds. The steers began to act nervous, so we kept swinging slowly round them, humming a quiet tune to keep ’em down. Finally, as we were passing each other, Tim said: “‘You’d better hike for camp and rustle the boys; I smell trouble. Git a move; for there’s no tellin’ when these devils’ll jump.’ “I struck out, roused the boys, and hit back for the herd, but just before I reached it, there was a blinding flash of lightning and a cracking clap of thunder. The herd jumped as if shot, and bolted away in the darkness. I heard Tim’s yell to check them, but it wasn’t any use. The herd plunged on. He was somewhere in front of them, and I was following the roar blindly, trying to join him. “The thunder cracked and boomed above our heads and the rain pelted down. The best I could do was to cling to the flanks of the herd. I couldn’t get ahead of them. It would have been madness to try. We charged on yelling and firing our revolvers in an effort to swing the mad leaders toward the drag end of the herd. If we could have got them ‘milling,’ or going in a circle, we might have stopped them.