dlessly; but the dream was long,
centuries long, it seemed to the men listening to the bellowing of the
herd. And while they waited, the red grew dull and the dragon dingy, and
its fury made its contortions the more horrible; and that was all the
difference between day and night in the land of the red silence. Sometimes
the dragon split, and joints of it tried to turn back to the last water it
had drunk; for cattle, though blinded with thirst, never forget the last
stream at which they have quenched thirst, and will turn back to it,
though they drop on the way. But the men pressed them farther and farther,
and for yet a little while the cattle yielded.

At midnight the saddle-stock was incapable of moving farther. One horse
had fallen and lay too weak to rise. The others, limping and foot-sore, no
longer responded to quirt and rowel. The foreman ordered the herd thrown
on the bed ground for the night. The herders for the first watch began to
circle. The rest of the outfit took to its blankets to snatch a little
rest for the double duty that awaited every man that night. Now it is a
time-honored belief among cow-men that the herd must be sung to,
particularly when it is restless, and to-night they tried all the old
favorites, the "Cow-boy's Lament" being chief among them. But the herd
refused to be soothed, and round and round it circled; not once would it
lie down.

The moon gleamed almost brazen, showing the cruel scars, the trenches torn
by cloud-bursts, the lines wrought by the long, patient waiting of the
earth for the lifting of the wrath of God. Imperishable grief was writ on
the land as on a human face. The night wore on, the watches changed, the
herd continued restless; not more than a third of it had bedded down. The
third watch was from one o'clock to half-past three in the morning.
Simpson and another "XXX" man, with two of the Wetmore outfit, made up a
double watch, and rode, singing, about the herd, as the long, dreary watch
wore away. The cattle's lowing had taken on a gasping, cracked sound that
was more frightful than the maddened bellow of the early evening. Simpson,
who was past the age when men live the life of the saddle, felt the
hardship keenly. He had ridden since sunrise, but for the respite at noon
and the scant time at the dry camp while the evening meal was being eaten.
He was more than half asleep now, as he lurched heavily in the saddle,
crossing and recrossing his partner in the half-circle