s head, but answered listlessly, "_Agua?
Si_," as though that were a matter of which all present must have equal
knowledge.

"That settles it," said Curly. "I never did know Juan to miss it on
locatin' water yet, not onct. I kin fairly taste it now. But you see,
Juan, he don't seem to go by no rock-pile signs. He just seems to
smell water, like a horse or a steer."

They now rode on more rapidly, bearing off toward the cairn which made
the water sign. All at once Juan lifted his head, listened for a
moment, and then said, with more show of animation than he had yet
displayed and with positiveness in his voice: "_Vacas_!" ("cows;
cattle").

Curly straightened up in his saddle as though electrified. "_Vacas?
Onde, Juan_?--where's any cows?" He knew well enough that no hoof of
domestic cattle had ever trod this country. Yet trust as he did the
dictum of the giant's strange extra sense, he could not see, anywhere
upon the wide country round about them, any signs of the buffalo to
which he was sure the Mexican meant to call his attention.

"_Vacas! muchas_," repeated Juan carelessly.

"Lots of 'em, eh? Well, I'd like to know where they are, my lily of
the valley," said Curly, for once almost incredulous. And then he
stopped and listened.--"Hold on, boys, listen," he said. "Look
out--look out! Here they come!"

Every ear caught the faint distant pattering, which grew into a rapid
and insistent rumble. "Cavalry, b'gad!" cried Battersleigh.
Franklin's eyes shone. He spurred forward fast as he could go, jerking
loose the thong which held his rifle fast in the scabbard under his leg.

The tumultuous roaring rumble came on steadily, the more apparent by a
widening and climbing cloud of dust, which betokened that a body of
large animals was coming up through the "breaks" from the bed of the
stream to the prairie on which the wagons stood. Presently there
appeared at the brink, looming through the white dust cloud, a mingling
mass of tangled, surging brown, a surface of tossing, hairy backs,
spotted with darker fronts, over all and around all the pounding and
clacking of many hoofs. It was the stampede of the buffalo which had
been disturbed at their watering place below, and which had headed up
to the level that they might the better make their escape in flight.
Head into the wind, as the buffalo alone of wild animals runs, the herd
paid no heed to the danger which they sought to escape, but upon which
they