“There goes the stampede!” shouted Wild Bill. “We’re not a minute too soon!”
“Where’s Perry?” demanded the frantic Dunbar, sweeping his eyes over the level country in the vicinity of the corral.
“If you want to locate Perry,” answered the scout, “watch the cattle. The scoundrels who started that stampede must have got them headed in the way they want them to go.”
The thump of hoofs and the click of knocking horns could be heard distinctly, while the gully began to smoke from the dust kicked up by the racing steers.
“I can’t see Perry,” cried Dunbar; “that confounded dust blurs everything. Let’s head off the cattle, if we can! Perhaps we can get them to milling!”
Everything considered, this seemed to be the best course. It was doubtful whether the frenzied longhorns would keep to the course marked out for them by Red Steve and his men, and in this very doubt lay a chance for Perry.
Uncertainty, however, hedged in every move the scout and his two companions could make. Had they known definitely just where Perry was, they could have planned their efforts in his behalf more intelligently.
The three riders scattered, Dunbar riding to nag at the herd’s flank close in toward the bluffs. Wild Bill made a dead set at the rolling, dusty tide nearer the corral. The scout, on the other hand, pointed Bear Paw in a direction that would cut the wide path along which the steers were running at a hundred yards or more in advance of the leaders.
As the scout rode, he not only watched the steers, but kept on the alert for some sign of Red Steve and the scoundrels with him.
The dust had become a dense cloud, and screened most of the frenzied herd. From the depths of the cloud came the clickety-clack of striking horns and the rumble of hoofs.