"Good gracious!" gasped the professor. "Drive on, driver—get out of the way quickly!"
"That's impossible, sir," replied the driver, immediately. "If I drive on, we are liable to be overturned by the rushing crowd. It is safer to keep still and remain here."
"Those cattle look like Texas long-horns!" cried Frank.
"So they are, sir," assured the driver. "They have broken out of the yard in which they were placed this morning. They were brought here on a steamer."
"Texas long-horns on a stampede in a crowded city!" fluttered Frank. "That means damage—no end of it."
In truth, nearly half a hundred wild Texan steers, driven to madness by the shrieking whistles and thundering cannons, had broken out of the fraily constructed yard, and at least a dozen of them had stampeded straight toward Canal Street.
Persons crushed against each other and fell over each other in frantic haste to get out of the way for the cattle to pass. Some were thrown down and trampled on by the fear-stricken throng. Men shouted hoarsely, and women shrieked.
Mad with terror, blinded by dust, furious with the joy of sudden freedom, the Texan steers, heads lowered, horns glistening, eyes glowing redly and nostrils steaming, charged straight into the crowd.
It was a terrible spectacle.
"For Heaven's sake, is there no way of stopping those creatures?" cried Frank.