"Start this stampede."
"Hanged if I know. They might have been lying in wait for us to come along—hidden out on the range, and they may have all jumped up with whoops, waving their hats, and setting the steers off that way, when we didn't happen to be looking. But that's where the disturbance came from all right!"
With snorts, bellows and heavy breathing the steers came on. Some were old Texas longhorns, but many of the cattle on the Diamond X ranch, and the adjacent possessions of Mr. Merkel, had been dehorned. It was found that more animals could be packed in a car when they had no interfering horns, and the practice is becoming general of taking the horns off western stock.
But even though some were without horns, this herd was sufficiently dangerous. The first thought of Bud and his cousins was to put all the distance possible between them and the foremost of the steers. This they had now done. And it was becoming evident that unless some of the leaders tripped and went down, there was to be no disastrous piling up of animals one on the other. The leaders ran well, and the others followed.
The rustlers, if such they were, seemed to realize that their desperate plan had failed, for, so far, not a beef had fallen. And the Greasers, off to one side, dared not try to cut out, and run off, any animals. To have ventured into the midst of that charging herd would have been madness.
"Come on! Let's see if we can turn 'em!" urged Bud, drawing his gun, an example followed by Nort and Dick. Led by the son of the owner of Diamond X, the boy ranchers charged down on the oncoming herd, from which they had just ridden away. But now they had the advantage. They stood a better chance. If they could turn the leaders, sending them in a circle, the other animals would follow, and soon the whole bunch would be "milling," which is the most desired way to stop a stampede.
"Come on! Come a ridin'! Whoop-ee!" shrilly cried Bud, yelling, waving his hat in one hand and firing in the air with his gun. Nort and Dick did likewise. Straight at the cattle they rode.
It was a desperate chance, but one that had to be taken. Bud knew, if the others did not, that about a mile beyond lay a gully, led up to by a cliff, and if the steers and cows reached this, the leaders unable to stop, while the rear ranks pushed on, there would be a mass of piled-up, dead cattle to tell the story.
"We've got to stop 'em!" shouted Bud.
And stop them, or, rather, turn them, the boy ranchers did. Just when it seemed that the wild animals would rush over, and trample down the three lads, the foremost of the steers turned at a sharp angle, their hoofs skidding in the soil, and swung around.