we don't get them
turned!" the girl cried in distress, pulling down her long scoop-like
bonnet and holding it together to keep the grasshoppers out of her face
while they talked.

The cattle now broke into a run. There was nothing to do but follow, as
Luther had advised. But the exasperated beasts were not looking for fodder
and paid no attention to the corn. They were not out on a picnicking
expedition; they were escaping from this tormenting swarm of insects which
settled on itching back and horns and tail, settled anywhere that a
sufficiently broad surface presented itself. Having started to run, they
ran on and on and on. The boy and girl followed, their horses stumbling
blindly over the ridges between which the corn was growing. The grayish
brown sod, through which the matted white roots of the grass showed
plainly, lay in fine lines down the long field, their irregular edges
causing horses and cattle to go down on their knees frequently as they
ran. But though the cattle sometimes fell, they were as quickly up and
pushed blindly ahead, neither knowing nor caring where they were going,
their only instinct being to get away.

Not a breath of air was in motion except such as was stirred by the wings
of the grasshoppers or was blown from the hot nostrils of the harassed
cattle. They passed through the cornfield, over a stubblefield beyond,
through a slough, another stubblefield, and on to the open prairie of
another section of "Railroad land." The boy and girl made no further
attempt to guide them. A cow, with the tickling feet of half a dozen of
these devils of torment on the end of a bare, wet nose, was in no state of
mind to be argued with, and the tossing horns, threshing about to free the
head from the pests, were to be taken into sober account. All they could
do was to let the maddened beasts take their own course.

For an hour, helpless to prevent the stampede, desiring nothing now but to
keep the cattle in sight, the weary, sunbaked children trudged along in
the rear of the herd, following through fields cut and uncut, over the
short grass of the hills or the long bluestem of the hollows, their horses
sweating profusely, their own faces too parched to emit moisture,
conscious only of the business of following the panting herd and of
avoiding the pitfalls under their horses' feet.

At last the cattle came to a walk. The heat of the day and the unusual
exertion had told upon them. Occasionally a tongue lolled