but very soon
they broke on me again, and repeated this twice. Finally toward morning
the few I had left came to a halt.

It had been raining hard for some time. I got off my horse and leaned
against a tree, but before long the infernal cattle started on again,
and I had to ride after them. Dawn came soon after this, and I was
able to make out where I was and head the cattle back, collecting other
little bunches as I went. After a while I came on a cowboy on foot
carrying his saddle on his head. He was my companion of the previous
night. His horse had gone full speed into a tree and killed itself, the
man, however, not being hurt. I could not help him, as I had all I could
do to handle the cattle. When I got them to the wagon, most of the other
men had already come in and the riders were just starting on the long
circle. One of the men changed my horse for me while I ate a hasty
breakfast, and then we were off for the day's work.

As only about half of the night herd had been brought back, the circle
riding was particularly heavy, and it was ten hours before we were back
at the wagon. We then changed horses again and worked the whole herd
until after sunset, finishing just as it grew too dark to do anything
more. By this time I had been nearly forty hours in the saddle, changing
horses five times, and my clothes had thoroughly dried on me, and I fell
asleep as soon as I touched the bedding. Fortunately some men who had
gotten in late in the morning had had their sleep during the daytime, so
that the rest of us escaped night guard and were not called until four
next morning. Nobody ever gets enough sleep on a round-up.

The above was the longest number of consecutive hours I ever had to be
in the saddle. But, as I have said, I changed horses five times, and it
is a great lightening of labor for a rider to have a fresh horse. Once
when with Sylvane Ferris I spent about sixteen hours on one horse,
riding seventy or eighty miles. The round-up had reached a place called
the ox-bow of the Little Missouri, and we had to ride there, do some
work around the cattle, and ride back.

Another time I was twenty-four hours on horseback in company with
Merrifield without changing horses. On this occasion we did not travel
fast. We had been coming back with the wagon from a hunting trip in
the Big Horn Mountains. The team was fagged out, and we were tired of
walking at a snail's pace beside it. When we reached country that the
driv