d rest to their complete
satisfaction until the middle of the afternoon; meanwhile all hands,
with the exception of two men on herd, also lay down and slept in the
shade of the wagon. When the cattle had had several hours' sleep, the
want of water made them restless, and they began to rise and graze
away. Then all hands were aroused and we threw them upon the trail.
The heat of the day was already over, and until the twilight of the
evening, we trailed a three-mile clip, and again threw the herd off to
graze. By our traveling and grazing gaits, we could form an
approximate idea as to the distance we had covered, and the consensus
of opinion of all was that we had already killed over half the
distance. The herd was beginning to show the want of water by evening,
but amongst our saddle horses the lack of water was more noticeable,
as a horse subsisting on grass alone weakens easily; and riding them
made them all the more gaunt. When we caught up our mounts that
evening, we had used eight horses to the man since we had left the
South Fork, and another one would be required at midnight, or whenever
we halted.

We made our drive the second night with more confidence than the one
before, but there were times when the train of cattle must have been
nearly two miles in length, yet there was never a halt as long as the
man with the lead light could see the one in the rear. We bedded the
herd about midnight; and at the first break of day, the fourth guard
with the foreman joined us on our watch and we started the cattle
again. There was a light dew the second night, and the cattle,
hungered by their night walk, went to grazing at once on the damp
grass, which would allay their thirst slightly. We allowed them to
scatter over several thousand acres, for we were anxious to graze them
well before the sun absorbed the moisture, but at the same time every
step they took was one less to the coveted Powder River.

When we had grazed the herd forward several miles, and the sun was
nearly an hour high, the wagon failed to come up, which caused our
foreman some slight uneasiness. Nearly another hour passed, and still
the wagon did not come up nor did the outfit put in an appearance.
Soon afterwards, however, Moss Strayhorn overtook us, and reported
that over forty of our saddle horses were missing, while the work
mules had been overtaken nearly five miles back on the trail. On
account of my ability as a trailer, Flood at once dispatched