"Not much," said Joe. "That was just plain ordinary drifting; but there was one while, just before the cattle started, when I thought that it was nip and tuck whether we would have a stampede or not. It would not have taken much to start those cattle off, and it sure would have been a bad night to ride in front of 'em and to turn 'em."
"I don't see how a man could ride fast over such a country as we crossed," Donald said.
"Well," said Jack, "could, or could not, he'd just have had to. It's a ground-hog case when a stampede is on."
"But I should think you'd break your neck; and kill all your horses."
"Well," declared Joe, "sometimes a man falls and breaks his neck, and oftener still a horse falls and breaks his neck or a leg, but of course the cattle have got to be turned. That's what we're hired for, and it's our business to do our work."
"You spoke before about turning the cattle. Where do you want to turn them to, and why do you want to turn them?"
"We want to turn 'em to get 'em to mill, and if we once get 'em milling, the trouble is pretty well over."
"I am sorry to seem so dull," said Donald, "but what do you mean by milling?"
"Why, we want to turn the cattle and get 'em running around in a circle. The hind ones will follow the lead ones, and if you can turn the lead ones, and keep 'em turning, after awhile they just keep running around and around in a circle and the hind ones follow 'em, and as you can understand, they don't get very far away."
"Now, certainly," exclaimed the Englishman, "that is very clever. I never should have thought of that. But how do you manage to turn them? Of course, you cannot go in front of them, because they would run over you and kill you."