led the
sleeping herd, humming softly a stanza of a cowboy song. Occasionally he
met Billie Prince or Tim McGrath circling in the opposite direction. The
scene was peaceful as old age and beautiful as a fairy tale. For under
the silvery light of night the Southwest takes on a loveliness foreign to
it in the glare of the sun. The harsh details of day are lost in a
luminous glow of mystic charm.

Jim had just ridden past Billie when the silence was shattered by a
sudden fury of sound. The popping of revolvers, the clanging of cow
bells, the clash of tin boilers--all that medley of discord which lends
volume to the horror known as a charivari--tore to shreds the harmony of
the night.

"What's that?" called Billie.

The hideous dissonance came from the side of the herd farthest from the
camp. Together the two riders galloped toward it.

"Peg-Leg Warren's work," guessed Clanton.

"Sure," agreed Billie. "Trying to stampede the herd."

Already the cattle were bawling in wild terror, surging toward the camp
to escape this unknown danger. Both of the punchers drew their revolvers
and fired rapidly into the herd. It was impossible to check the rush, but
they succeeded in deflecting it from the sleeping men. Before the weapons
were empty, the ground shook with a thunder of hoofs as the herd fled
into the darkness.

Billie found himself in the van of the stampede. He was caught in the
rush and to save himself from being trampled down was forced to join the
flight. He was the center of a moving sea of backs, so hemmed in that if
his pony stumbled life would be trodden out of him in an instant. Except
for occasional buffalo wallows the ground was level, but at any moment
his mount might break a leg in a prairie-dog hole.

For the first mile or two the cattle were packed in a dense mass,
shoulder to shoulder, all lumbering forward in wild-eyed panic. The noise
of their hoofs was like the continuous roll of thunder and the cloud of
dust so thick that the throat of Prince was swollen with it. It was only
after the stampeded cattle had covered several miles that the formation
of their aimless charge grew looser. The pace slackened as the steers
became leg-weary. Now and again small bunches dropped from the drag or
from one of the flanks. Gradually Billie was able to work toward the
outskirts. His chance came when the herd poured into a swale and from it
emerged into a more broken terrain. Directly in front of the leaders was
a