, his mind was all a daze, with one sentence zigzagging through
it like the lightning over his head, "Give Sunfish his head, and keep on
the outside!"

That was what saved him, for he had the sense to obey. After a few
minutes of breathless racing, with a roar as of breakers in his ears and
the crackle of clashing horns and the gleaming of rolling eyeballs close
upon his horse's heels, he found himself washed high and dry, as it
were, while the tumult swept by. Presently he was galloping along behind
and wondering dully how he got there, though perhaps Sunfish knew well
enough.

In his story of the West--the one that had failed to be convincing--he
had in his ignorance described a stampede, and it had not been in the
least like this one. He blushed at the memory, and wondered if he should
ever again feel qualified to write of these things.

Great drops of rain pounded him on the back as he rode--chill drops,
that went to the skin. He thought of his new canary-colored slicker in
the bed-tent, and before he knew it swore just as any of the other
men would have done under similar provocation; it was the first real,
able-bodied oath he had ever uttered. He was becoming assimilated with
the raw conditions of life.

He heard a man's voice calling to him, and distinguished the dim shape
of a rider close by. He shouted that password of the range, "Hello!"

"What outfit is this?" the man cried again.

"The Lazy Eight!" snapped Thurston, sure that the other had come with
the stampede. Then, feeling the anger of temporary authority, "What in
hell are you up to, letting your cattle run?" If Park could have heard
him say that for Reeve-Howard!

Down the long length of the valley they swept, gathering to themselves
other herds and other riders as incensed as were themselves. It is not
pretty work, nor amusing, to gallop madly in the wake of a stampede at
night, keeping up the stragglers and taking the chance of a broken neck
with the rain to make matters worse.

Bob MacGregor sought Thurston with much shouting, and having found him
they rode side by side. And always the thunder boomed overhead, and by
the lightning flashes they glimpsed the turbulent sea of cattle fleeing,
they knew not where or why, with blind fear crowding their heels.

The noise of it roused the camps as they thundered by; men rose up,
peered out from bed-tents as the stampede swept past, cursed the delay
it would probably make, hoped none of the boys go