“They’ll run us down!” cried Nora.
“No! We can get away if they get too close. Ride for them and yell like all possessed. Try to turn them to their left,” urged Grace.
The Overland girls, fired with the same spirit that was urging the cowpunchers in their work, started forward at a gallop, waving their sombreros and uttering such screeches as probably not only astounded, but frightened the outlaw steers. The cattle, however, held to their course just the same. Two-gun Pete saw and understood what the girls were trying to do. He also understood full well the risk they were taking. Pete pealed out a shrill, far-reaching warning, but they did not hear.
“Yell, you Overlanders!” screamed Elfreda Briggs, and, taking her own advice, she uttered yell after yell, that Two-gun Pete later declared on his honor as a cowpuncher frightened one tough old maverick to death. At least the animal was found dead at about that point, later on in the day.
J. Elfreda evidently turned the tide, for a leader swerved, and the herd followed him and went plunging down the slope.
“Hot stuff, but don’t ye do it again!” shouted the cowboy as he followed the herd down the foothill and out into the valley, where other cowpunchers came to his assistance and rounded it up.
The girls, now that the excitement was ended, suddenly felt weak in the knees. They realized that they had taken a desperate chance, and that they had not been unhorsed, and perhaps gored to death, was due to great good luck, and to the far-reaching power of the dignified Elfreda Briggs’ voice, rather than to any skill on their part.
“That was a fool thing to do,” observed Stacy, who now came trotting up to them.
“Why, you unappreciative creature!” rebuked Emma. “Don’t you know that we were trying to save your life?”
“Save nothing!” growled Stacy.