lead
and headed for the bridge. With a cordon of twenty riders around them,
no animal could turn back, and the horses crossed the bridge on a
trot, but the cattle turned tail and positively refused to have
anything to do with it. We held them like a block in a vise, so
compactly that they could not even mill, but they would not cross the
bridge.

When it became evident that it was a fruitless effort, Jacklin,
usually a very quiet man, gave vent to a fit of profanity which would
have put the army in Flanders to shame. Slaughter, somewhat to our
amusement, reproved him: "Don't fret, man; this is nothing,--I balked
a herd once in crossing a railroad track, and after trying for two
days to cross them, had to drive ten miles and put them under a
culvert. You want to cultivate patience, young fellow, when you're
handling dumb brutes."

If Slaughter's darky cook had been thereabouts then, and suggested a
means of getting that herd to take the bridge, his suggestion would
have been welcomed, for the bosses were at their wits' ends. Jacklin
swore that he would bed that herd at the entrance, and hold them there
until they starved to death or crossed, before he would let an animal
turn back. But cooler heads were present, and The Rebel mentioned a
certain adage, to the effect that when a bird or a girl, he didn't
know which, could sing and wouldn't, she or it ought to be made to
sing. He suggested that we hold the four oxen on the bridge, cut off
fifteen head of cattle, and give them such a running start, they
wouldn't know which end their heads were on when they reached the
bridge. Millet's foreman approved of the idea, for he was nursing his
wrath. The four oxen were accordingly cut out, and Slaughter and one
of his men, taking them, started for the bridge with instructions to
hold them on the middle. The rest of us took about a dozen head of
light cattle, brought them within a hundred yards of the bridge, then
with a yell started them on a run from which they could not turn back.
They struck the entrance squarely, and we had our first cattle on the
bridge. Two men held the entrance, and we brought up another bunch in
the same manner, which filled the bridge. Now, we thought, if the herd
could be brought up slowly, and this bridgeful let off in their lead,
they might follow. To June a herd of cattle across in this manner
would have been shameful, and the foreman of the herd knew it as well
as any one present; but no one prote