d beef to throw to the dogs. I
never saw her again, but wherever she is to-night, if my prayer counts,
may God bless her!"

Early in the evening I had warned my boys that we would start on our
return at ten o'clock. The hour was nearly at hand, and in reply to my
inquiry if our portion of the beef had been secured, Jack Splann said
that he had cut off half a loin, a side of ribs, and enough steak for
breakfast. Splann and I tied the beef to our cantle-strings, and when
we returned to the group, Sponsilier was telling of the stampede of
his herd in the Panhandle about a month before. "But that run wasn't
a circumstance to one in which I figured once, and in broad daylight,"
concluded Dave. It required no encouragement to get the story; all we
had to do was to give him time to collect his thoughts.

"Yes, it was in the summer of '73," he finally continued. "It was my
first trip over the trail, and I naturally fell into position at the
drag end of the herd. I was a green boy of about eighteen at the time,
having never before been fifty miles from the ranch where I was born.
The herd belonged to Major Hood, and our destination was Ellsworth,
Kansas. In those days they generally worked oxen to the chuck-wagons,
as they were ready sale in the upper country, and in good demand
for breaking prairie. I reckon there must have been a dozen yoke of
work-steers in our herd that year, and they were more trouble to me than
all the balance of the cattle, for they were slothful and sinfully lazy.
My vocabulary of profanity was worn to a frazzle before we were out a
week, and those oxen didn't pay any more attention to a rope or myself
than to the buzzing of a gnat.

"There was one big roan ox, called Turk, which we worked to the wagon
occasionally, but in crossing the Arbuckle Mountains in the Indian
Territory, he got tender-footed. Another yoke was substituted, and in a
few days Turk was on his feet again. But he was a cunning rascal and
had learned to soldier, and while his feet were sore, I favored him with
sandy trails and gave him his own time. In fact, most of my duties were
driving that one ox, while the other boys handled the herd. When his
feet got well--I had toadied and babied him so--he was plum ruined.
I begged the foreman to put him back in the chuck team, but the cook
kicked on account of his well-known laziness, so Turk and I continued to
adorn the rear of the column. I reckon the foreman thought it better
to have Tur