“To keep the cattle quiet,” explained the ranch girl. “Singing often keeps the cows from milling——”
“Milling?” repeated Ruth.
“That’s when they begin to get uneasy, and mill around and around in a circle. Cows are just as foolish as a flock of hens.”
“But you don’t mean to say the boys sing ’em to sleep?” laughed Ruth.
“Something like that. It often keeps ’em quiet. Lets ’em know there’s humans about.”
“Why, I really thought he must be making that noise to keep himself from feeling lonely,” chuckled Ruth.
“Nobody’d want to do that, you know,” returned Jane Ann, with seriousness. “Especially when they can’t sing no better than that Fred English.”
“It is worse than a mourning dove,” complained the girl from the East. “Why doesn’t he try something a bit livelier?”
“You don’t want to whistle a jig-tune to keep cows quiet,” Jane Ann responded, sagely.
The entire herd seemed astir now. There was a sultriness in the air quite unfamiliar on the range. The electricity still glowed along the horizon; but it seemed so distant that the girls much doubted Darcy’s prophecy of rain.