ater. When possible, we
always preferred watering the herd between three and four o'clock in the
afternoon. But by holding our course, we were certain to intersect the
creek at about the usual hour for the cattle's daily drink, and besides,
as the creek neared the river, it ran through an alkali flat for some
distance. But before the time arrived to intersect the creek on our
course, the herd turned out of the trail, determined to go to the creek
and quench their thirst. The entire outfit, however, massed on the right
flank, and against their will we held them on their course. As their
thirst increased with travel, they made repeated attempts to break
through our cordon, requiring every man to keep on the alert. But we
held them true to the divide, and as we came to the brow of a small hill
within a quarter-mile of the water, a stench struck us until we turned
in our saddles, gasping for breath. I was riding third man in the swing
from the point, and noticing something wrong in front, galloped to the
brow of the hill. The smell was sickening and almost unendurable, and
there before us in plain view lay hundreds of dead cattle, bloated and
decaying in the summer sun.

I was dazed by the awful scene. A pretty, greenswarded little valley
lay before me, groups of cottonwoods fringed the stream here and there,
around the roots of which were both shade and water. The reeking stench
that filled the air stupefied me for the instant, and I turned my horse
from the view, gasping for a mouthful of God's pure ozone. But our
beeves had been scenting the creek for hours, and now a few of the
leaders started forward in a trot for it. Like a flash it came to me
that death lurked in that water, and summoning every man within hearing,
I dashed to the lead of our cattle to turn them back over the hill.
Jack Splann was on the point, and we turned the leaders when within
two hundred yards of the creek, frequently jumping our horses over the
putrid carcasses of dead cattle. The main body of the herd were trailing
for three quarters of a mile in our rear, and none of the men dared
leave their places. Untying our slickers, Splann and I fell upon the
leaders and beat them back to the brow of the hill, when an unfortunate
breeze was wafted through that polluted atmosphere from the creek to the
cattle's nostrils. Turning upon us and now augmented to several hundred
head, they sullenly started forward. But in the few minutes' interim,
two other la