Sometimes one of the cattle would show a determination to dash away from the main body, but before he went far, a horseman was in front of him and he was forced back. The night was too chilly for sleeping, else one or more of the herders would have stretched out on the damp earth, with his bridle reins so interlocked with his arm that his horse could not wander off, or he would have fallen asleep in his saddle. When worn out with fatigue and loss of slumber, a cowboy often rides for miles totally unconscious of what is going on around him.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A MISHAP.
The weather cleared toward morning, and the sun rose without a cloud obscuring its face. The halt had been made along a small tributary of the Wichita, whose upper waters flow through the country of the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches, that of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes lying further north.
The scene was inspiriting. The cowboys gathered around the wagon for breakfast, the cook having been thoughtful enough to protect the wood against the rain. The animals were busy cropping the grass, which was rich and succulent on all sides of the Trail, the hands for the time being bestowing only general attention on them, but everyone was ready to leap into the saddle and dash off at a instant’s call.
Captain Shirril discovered that a bunch of thirty cattle were missing, and believed they had joined his friend’s herd a mile to the southward, from which it would be necessary to separate or cut them out.