"I 'm th' good little boy, too, from now on," replied Murray. "An' I 'm goin' to be awful busy farther east on that line. Savvy? I ain't goin' to be able to even guess how they got over th' Hog Back, an' I 'll take th' blame for bein' careless. I 'd ruther lose my job than house any lead under my skin. Aw! I 'm goin' in an' get some sleep."
"Me, too; I 'll come right soon," and Slow Jack drifted off into the darkness as his companion started for the bunk-house.
When Slow Jack entered the bunk-house half an hour after Murray, he paused in the door and looked at the western sky, where lightning zigzagged occasionally. The barely audible roll of thunder told him how far off the storm was and he noticed that the wind was blowing less steadily, coming in gusts from varying points. Even while he stood, the sound of the thunder increased in volume and the long, thin lightning reached out nearer to him, a livid whip that lashed the heavens into roaring anger.
"Huh! Reckon Spring is shore nuff here now," he muttered. "Fust real lightnin' I seen this year." Five minutes later he was asleep.
* * * * *
The Hog Back loomed up like a condensation of the surrounding night, its huge bulk magnified and made soft in its rugged outlines. A restless wind scurried like a panic-stricken animal, sighing through the brush and whispering through the rocks. At intervals the silence was so intense that the scraping of a twig, yards away, could be plainly heard; and at other times the bellow of a steer would have been lost in a few rods.
Something moved across the plain, slowly and carefully as if feeling its way, and toiled up the precarious trail, rolling pebbles clattering down; in the noise of their fall was lost the soft thudding that marked the course of the moving smudge. The lightning in the western sky flashed nearer and gave brief illumination of the scene. Four men rode single file up the dark trail, silent, intent, wary, the leader picking his way as though he knew it well; in reply to a low-voiced question from his nearest companion, he stretched out an abnormally long arm in a sharp gesture. He did not like to have his ability doubted.
Reaching the top, the procession strung along and finally dipped into a ravine, following the steeply slanting water-course until stopped by a lariat stretched across the way. Tossing aside the rope, the leader led the force onto the walled-in pasture where each man went swiftly to work without instructions. The fire at the leader's feet, fanned by the high wind, leaped from him through the sun-cured bunches of grass in a rapidly widening circle, the heavy smoke rolling down upon the restless cattle in pungent clouds, sparks streaming through them. Every cow on the pasture was on its feet, pawing and snorting with fear at this most dreaded of all enemies. While they stood, seemingly hypnotized for a moment by the low flames, the darkness to the east of them was streaked with spurts of fire and the cracks of revolvers on their flank sent them thundering toward the river. The confusion of the stampede was indescribable as the front ranks, sensing the edge of the cliff, tried in vain to check itself and hold back against the press of the avalanche of terror-stricken animals behind. The change was magical—one moment a frenzied mass of struggling cows lighted grotesquely by the burning grass, and then only the edge of the cliff and the swishing grayness of the river below. The wind was blowing the flames toward the edge of the cliff and they would die from lack of material upon which to feed, though the four cared little about that. Their horses stumbled with them along the ravine, leaving behind a blackened plain across which sparks were driven by each gust of wind, to glow brilliantly and die. Below, once more wrapped in impenetrable darkness, swished the Black Jack, cold, cruel, deep, and fugitive, its scurrying, frightened cross currents whispering mysteriously as they discussed the tragedy. Suddenly the rain deluged everything as if wrathful at the pitiable slaughter and eager to wash out the stain of it.
* * * * *
In the middle of the forenoon of the following day Slow Jack loomed up in the fog of the driving rain and the vapors arising from the earth and slid from his saddle in front of the ranch house, his hideous yellow slicker shining as though polished. Buck opened the door and instinctively stepped back to avoid the wet gust that assailed him. "There 's a lot o' cows floating in the backwater o' th' Jack where th' creek empties in—I roped one an' drug it ashore. Just plain drowned, I reckon. There was signs of itch, too," Slow Jack reported.