This had been a time of some drought and the river was running low. The banks were not only steep upon this side, but they were twenty feet and more high. When the first of the maddened beeves reached the verge of the bank they went headlong down the descent, and some landed at the edge of the water with broken limbs and so were trampled to death. But the plunging over of hundreds upon hundreds of steers at the same point, together with the washing of the falling rain, quickly cut down these banks until they became little more than steep quagmires in which the beasts wallowed more slowly to the river’s edge.
This heavy going did more than aught else to retard the stampede; but many of the first-comers got over the shallow river and climbed upon the plain beyond. All night long the cowboys were gathering up the herd upon the eastern shore of the river; those that had crossed must be left until day dawned.
And a very unpleasant night it was, although the stampede itself had been of short duration. A troop of cattle had dashed through the camp and flattened out the tent that had sheltered the lady visitors. Fortunately the said visitors had taken refuge in the supply wagon before the cattle had broken loose.
But, led by The Fox, there was much disturbance in the supply wagon for the time being. Fortunately a water-tight tarpaulin had kept the girls comparatively dry; but Mary Cox loudly expressed her wish that they had not come out to the camp, and the other girls were inclined to be a little fractious as well.
When Jane Ann and Ruth rode in, however, after the trouble was all over, and the rain had ceased, a new fire was built and coffee made, and the situation took on a more cheerful phase. Ruth was quite excited over it all, but glad that she had taken a hand in the herding of the cattle that had not broken away.
“And if you stay to help the boys gather the steers that got across the river, to-morrow, I am going to help, too,” she declared.
“Tom and Bob will help,” Helen said. “I wish I was as brave as you are, Ruth; but I really am afraid of these horned beasts.”
“I never was cut out for even a milkmaid, myself,” added Heavy. “When a cow bellows it makes me feel queer up and down my spine just as it does when I go to a menagerie and hear the lions roar.”
“They won’t bite you,” sniffed Jane Ann.
“But they can hook you. And my! the noise they made when they went through this camp! You never heard the like,” said the stout girl, shaking her head. “No. I’m willing to start back for the ranch-house in the morning.”