Singing at the top of his voice and swinging his slicker over his head, he swept down on the outside steers, being crowded on to them by the swift current against which his plucky pony struggled hard. Had he abandoned the effort and turned the animal up stream, facing the current, he might have breasted it and held his own, but the kid resolutely kept his place as well as he could.
"'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande,
'Way down yonder in that southwest land,"
he sang valiantly as he thrashed the steers with his yellow slicker, trying to turn them from their course. He was rapidly accomplishing his purpose, and a few of the leaders were already turned and about to string out for the shore, when one broad-horned fellow right behind him raised in the water like some huge sea monster, and lunged upon his horse's hips with both front feet.
The weight of the steer drove the horse down into the water, the swift current swept him on to his side, and in a second he was under the mass of steers, his rider hanging to him.
A few minutes later the horse came into view from below the cattle but the boy was missing. Uncle John, at the first sign of trouble had dashed toward the spot, and as the horse came into sight leaned from his saddle, grabbed the bridle rein and pulled the half-drowned animal on to his feet in the shallower water. Spurring into the deep water again, he and the men with him swung up and down the line of cattle, watching with eager, anxious eyes for the slightest sign of a human form, but they could see nothing.
Meantime the steers were rapidly crossing, and the leaders had already climbed out on to the opposite bank and were working back from the river, coughing and shaking their dripping bodies.
Two other men joined Uncle John in the search for the lost singer, but though they watched every spot, riding up and down the stream for a mile, they were unable to discover any sign of the boy.
Leaving Jim and another man to watch the river, the rest of the outfit pushed the steers out on to the open range to graze.
Up and down the bank all that day the two men rode, reinforced by all the others who could be spared from the herd. Across the seat of the saddle on the horse ridden by the boy was a deep scar where the rowels of his spur had cut the leather, done probably as he slipped from the horse as he went under.
The steers could not be held there long, so the next morning Uncle John, with a heavy heart, started the outfit at daybreak for the railroad loading pens, thirty miles away, leaving Jim, who had asked for the job, behind to keep a lookout for the body of the drowned cowboy. All day long he rode the banks of the river. Every eddy as well as the great rafts of driftwood, was carefully searched. Just a short time before sunset he noticed a couple of buzzards a little lower down on the river slowly circling overhead. He knew their keen eyes saw something, and both hoping and dreading that it was what he sought, he worked his way down towards the point over which the great birds were hovering. Here the river had cut into the sandy bank and a thicket of willows hung over the yellow water. Getting down onto one knee, Jim peered under them.