est. Then the
stream stopped flowing, and Pink and the Silent One rode back up the
bluff to where the bulk of the footsore herd, their senses dulled by
hunger and weariness and choking thirst, sniffed at the gravel that
promised agony to their bruised feet, and balked at the ordeal. Others
straggled up, bunched against the rebels, and stood stolidly where they
were.

Pink galloped on down the crawling line. "Forward, the Standard Oil
Brigade!" he yelled whimsically as he went.

The cowboys heard--and understood. They left their places and went
forward at a lope, and Pink rode back to the coulee edge, untying
his slicker as he went. The Silent One was already off his horse and
shouting hoarsely as he whacked with his slicker at the sulky mass.
Pink rode in and did the same. It was not the first time this thing had
happened, and from a diversion it was verging closely on the monotonous.
Presently, even a rank tenderfoot must have caught the significance of
Pink's military expression. The Standard Oil Brigade was at the front in
force.

Cowboys, swinging five-gallon oil-cans, picked up from scattered sheep
camps and carried many a weary mile for just such an emergency, were
charging the bunch intrepidly. Others made shift with flat sirup-cans
with pebbles inside. A few, like Pink and the Silent One, flapped their
slickers till their arms ached. Anything, everything that would make
a din and startle the cattle out of their lethargy, was pressed into
service.

But they might have been raised in a barnyard and fed cabbage leaves
from back door-steps, for all the excitement they showed. Cattle that
three months ago--or a month--would run, head and tail high in air, at
sight of a man on foot, backed away from a rattling, banging cube of
gleaming tin, turned and faced the thing dull-eyed and apathetic.

In time, however, they gave way dogedly before the onslaught. A few were
forced shrinkingly down the hill; others followed gingerly, until the
line lengthened and flowed, a sluggish, brown-red stream, into the
coulee and across to Quitter Creek.

Here the leaders were browsing greedily along the banks. They had
emptied the few holes that had still held a meager store of brackish
water and so the mutinous bulk of the herd snuffed at the trampled,
muddy spots and bellowed their disappointment.

Wooden Shoes rode up and surveyed the half maddened animals gloomily.
"Push 'em on, boys," he said. "They's nothings for 'em here.