For a minute or two Roosevelt could make out nothing except the dark forms of the beasts, running on every side of him like the black waters of a roaring river. He was conscious that if his horse should stumble there would be no hope for him in the path of those panicky hoofs. The herd split, a part turning to one side, while the other part kept straight ahead. Roosevelt galloped at top speed, hoping to reach the leaders and turn them.
He heard a wild splashing ahead. One instant he was aware that the cattle in front of him and beside him were disappearing; the next, he himself was plunging over a cutbank into the Little Missouri. He bent far back in the saddle. His horse almost fell, recovered himself, plunged forward, and, struggling through water and quicksand, made the other side.
For a second he saw another cowboy beside him. The man disappeared in the darkness and the deluge, and Roosevelt galloped off through a grove of cottonwoods after the diminished herd. The ground was rough and full of pitfalls. Once his horse turned a somersault and threw him. At last the cattle came to a halt, but soon they were again away through the darkness. Thrice again he halted them, and thrice again they stampeded.
"The country was muddy and wet," said Lincoln Lang afterward. "We were having a heavy rain all night. I don't know how we ever got through. All we had was lightning flashes to go by. It was really one of the worst mix-ups I ever saw. That surely was a night."
The Scene Of The Stampede.
On the farther side of the river is the cutbank over which the cattle rushed in the dark.
Day broke at last, and as the light filtered through the clouds Roosevelt could dimly discern where he was. He succeeded at last in turning back what remained of the cattle in the direction of the camp, gathering in stray groups of cattle as he went, and driving them before him. He came upon a cowboy on foot carrying his saddle on his head. It was the man he had seen for a flash during the storm. His horse had run into a tree and been killed. He himself had escaped by a miracle.
The men in the camp were just starting on the "long circle" when Roosevelt returned. One of them saddled a fresh horse for him while he snatched a hasty breakfast; then he was off for the day's work.
As only about half of the night-herd had been brought back, the circle-riding was particularly heavy, and it was ten hours before Roosevelt was back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty meal and a fresh horse. He finished work as the late twilight fell. He had been in the saddle forty hours, changing horses five times. That night he slept like the dead.