treacherous patches of quicksand, the wagon thus halted by the
sheer nerve and quick-thinking of mother became a very small island in a
troubled sea of weltering backs and tossing horns and staring eyeballs.
Riders shouted and lashed unavailingly with their quirts, trying to
hold back the full bulk of the herd until the foremost had slaked
their thirst and gone on. But the herd was crazy for the water, and
the foremost were plunged headlong into the soft mud where they mired,
trampled under the hoofs of those who came crowding from behind.

Someone shouted, close to the wagon yet down the bank at the edge of the
water. The words were indistinguishable, but a warning was in the voice.
On the echo of that cry, a man screamed twice.

"Ezra!" cried mother fiercely. "It's Frank Davis--they've got him down,
somehow. Climb over the backs of the cattle--There's no other way--and
GET HIM!"

"Yas'm, Missy!" Ezra called back, and then Buddy saw him go over the
herd, scrambling, jumping from back to back.

Buddy remembered that always, and the funeral they had later in the day,
when the herd was again just trail-weary cattle feeding hungrily on the
scanty grass. Down at the edge of the creek the carcasses of many dead
animals lay half-buried in the mud. Up on a little knoll where a few
stunted trees grew, the negroes dug a long, deep hole. Mother's eyes
were often filled with tears that day, and the cowboys scarcely talked
at all when they gathered at the chuckwagon.

After a while they all went to the hole which the negroes had dug, and
there was a long Something wrapped up in canvas. Mother wore her best
dress which was black, and father and all the boys had shaved their
faces and looked very sober. The negroes stood back in a group by
themselves, and every few minutes Buddy saw them draw their tattered
shirtsleeves across their faces. And father--Buddy looked once and saw
two tears running down father's cheeks. Buddy was shocked into a stony
calm. He had never dreamed that fathers ever cried.

Mother read out of her Bible, and all the boys held their hats in front
of them, with their hands clasped, and looked at the ground while she
read. Then mother sang. She sang, "We shall meet beyond the river",
which Buddy thought was a very queer song, because they were all there
but Frank Davis; then she sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Buddy sang
too, piping the notes accurately, with a vague pronunciation of the
words and a feeling