The Lure of the Dim Trails

of a long, shallow basin that had a creek running through; down the winding banks of it lay the white-tented camps of seven other trail-herds, the cattle maki

unfeelingly. "By the signs, you can take snap-shots

h yuh had it before yuh hit camp again; when yuh get wise, you'll ride with you

, and Bob gave him minute directions about riding his rounds, and how t

away to camp. Off to the right an animal coughe

o they'll know what yuh are." His tone was subdued, as it had not been before. He seemed to drift away into the darkness, and soon his voice rose, away across the herd, singing. As he drew nearer

a bird in a

ul sight

eems ha-a-aappy and

to Thurston, who whistled softly under his breath while he listened. T

uty was

o-old, She's a bird

lacker, and the rhythmic ebb and flow of the clear, untrained voice of a cowboy singing to his charge. If he could put it into words; if he could but picture the broody stillness, with frogs cr-ekk, er-ekking alon

church-yard

unset adorn

Down," and from that jumped to Faust. Fifteen minutes exhausted his memory of the whistleable parts, and he was not given to tiresome repetitions. He stopped for a moment, and Bob's voice chanted admonishingly from somewhere,

rds uh that piece? It's a peach; I wisht you'd sing it." He ro

der-heads rumbled deep accompaniment, lik

-sleeping, there ca

rusalem, beside t

, and Thurston's horse, trained to the wor

dren singing; and

e of angels from he

boomed, drowning the words

alem, lift up you

or we'll lose some. They're gettin

quickened to a trot. The joggling was not conducive t

in the

to you

and Bob, who had contented himself with a subdued

lem, Je

ails to the coming storm. Now the horses were loping steadily in their endless circling-a pace they could hold for hours if ne

ommand, and after it Bob's voice tr

in the

to you

night sky when it was threatening as now. He flinched when came an ear-splitting crash that once again lifted the black curtain and showed him, white-lighted, the plai

he frightened herd. "If they hit us, give Sunfish his

e down upon him-twenty-five hundred Panhandle two-year-olds, though he did not know it then, his mind was all a daze, wi

crackle of clashing horns and the gleaming of rolling eyeballs close upon his horse's heels, he found himself washed high and dry, as it were, w

ce described a stampede, and it had not been in the least like this one. He blushed at

red slicker in the bed-tent, and before he knew it swore just as any of the other men would have done under similar provocat

tinguished the dim shape of a rider close by.

s this?" the m

de. Then, feeling the anger of temporary authority, "What in hell are you up to,

nsed as were themselves. It is not pretty work, nor amusing, to gallop madly in the wake of a stampede at n

. And always the thunder boomed overhead, and by the lightning flashes they glimpsed the turb

stampede swept past, cursed the delay it would probably make, hoped none of the boys got hurt, and

o bed to wait philoso

washout, and sent Thurston sailing unbeautifully over h

had won for himself the indulgent protectiveness of the whole outfit; not a man but watched unobtrusively over his welf

k Bob would have shouted at the spectacle. "I'm 'kinda sorter shuck up like,"' he

your Sunday-school teacher say if she heard yuh? Anyway, yuh ain't got any

legantly. "I'd like to see you ri

the argument. "We'll be plumb lost

g by sound and the rare glimpses the lightning gave

g shelter of his slicker. Thurston, wriggling away fr

hree men for every herd that had joined in the panic-circled, a veritable picket line without the password. T

he world seemed unreal and far away, with nothing left but the night and the riding back and forth on his beat, and the rain that oozed thr

of a herd larger than his imagination had ever pictured; three thousand cattle had seemed to him a multitude-yet here were more than twenty thousand, wet

ght! Did the bunch walk

l, elemental man of him; to the son of Bill Thurston, bull-whacker, prospector, follower of dim trails. He rode silently back to camp with Bob, ate his breakfast, got into dry clothes and wen

un," he chuckled. "And you've got the slicker question settled in your mind

th the herd, haven't we?" Thursto

ill noon, m'son. We hike to be

t to work separating the different brands. He was too green a hand to do anything but help hold the "cut," and that was so much like ordinary herd-ing that his interest

did not know the meaning of fatigue. Thurston, watching him thread his way in and out of the restless, milling herd, only to reappear unexpectedly at the edge with a steer just before the

nd coached and given boy's work to do; all because he had been cheated of his legacy of the dim trails and forc