II
Some time before my visit to P Ranch, in the summer of 1912, the riders had taken out a herd of four thousand steers on what proved to be one of the most difficult drives ever made to Winnemucca. For the first two days on the trail the cattle were strange to each other, having been gathered from widely separated grazing grounds,—from Double-O and the Home Ranch,—and were somewhat clannish and restive under the driving. At the beginning of the third day signs of real trouble appeared. A shortage of water and the hot weather together began to tell on the temper of the herd.
The third day was long and exceedingly hot. The line started forward at dawn, and all day kept moving, with the sun cooking the bitter smell of the sage into the air, and with sixteen thousand hoofs kicking up a still bitterer smother of alkali dust which inflamed eyes and nostrils and coated the very lungs of the cattle. The fierce desert thirst was upon the herd long before it reached the creek where it was to bed for the night. The heat and the dust had made slow work of the driving, and it was already late when they reached the creek, only to find it dry.
This was bad. The men were tired, but the cattle were thirsty, and Wade, the 'boss of the buckaroos,' pushed the herd on toward the next rim-rock, hoping to get down to the plain below before the end of the slow desert twilight. Anything for the night but a dry camp.
They had hardly started on when a whole flank of the herd, suddenly breaking away as if by prearrangement, tore off through the brush. The horses were as tired as the men, and, before the chase was over, the twilight was gray in the sage, making it necessary to halt at once and camp where they were. They would have to go without water.
The runaways were brought up and the herd closed in till it formed a circle nearly a mile around. This was as close as it could be drawn, for the cattle would not bed—lie down. They wanted water more than they wanted rest. Their eyes were red, their tongues raspy with thirst. The situation was a difficult one.
But camp was made. Two of the riders were sent back along the trail to bring up the 'drags' while Wade, with his other men, circled the uneasy cattle, closing them in, quieting them, and doing everything possible to make them bed.
They were thirsty; and instead of bedding, the herd began to 'growl'—a distant mutter of throats, low, rumbling, ominous, as when faint thunder rolls behind the hills. Every plainsman fears the growl, for it too often is a prelude to the 'milling,' as it proved to be now, when the whole vast herd began to stir—slowly, singly at first and without direction, till at length it moved together, round and round a great compact circle, the multitude of clicking hoofs, of clashing horns and chafing sides, like the sound of rushing rain across a field of corn.
Nothing could be worse for the cattle. The cooler twilight was falling, but, mingling with it, rose and thickened and spread a choking dust from their feet which soon covered them, and shut from sight all but the wall of the herd. Slowly, evenly, swung the wall, round and round, without a break. Only one who has watched a milling herd can know its suppressed excitement. To keep that excitement in check was the problem of Wade and his men. And the night had not yet begun.
When the riders had brought in the drags, and the chuckwagon had lumbered up with supper, Wade set the first watch.