The Great Trek Page 22

  Half of Ormiston’s mob were in the lead, straight for the river, on the angle to which they had been deflected. That pointed a mile or less up the river. Let them pass! Sterl ached to see them win what must fatefully be a race for the water.

  It came to him then that Ormiston’s mob, on the farther upstream side to windward, had caught the fatal scent. After three days of heat and dust without a drink, they smelled the river. Water! If they had the scent in their dry nostrils, Dann’s herd would catch it soon. But despite Sterl’s readiness for the inevitable shock, when Dann’s mob leaped into swift action and an appalling thunder boomed and the ground shook as if in earthquake, Sterl screamed with all his might and never heard his own voice.

  He threw up his hands, a gun in one and sombrero in the other. And he sat King stricken and riveted by twice as many cattle as he had ever seen in stampede. The thunder was the thunder of stampeding buffalo. Mushrooming yellow clouds of dust rolled back over the mob, moving as one animal, covering them, swallowing them up. For a cowboy, it was a terrific and heart-rending spectacle.

  But that awesome sight did not detract from Sterl’s vigilance. His eyes veered everywhere, like a compass needle. And he was the first to see that a spur of the herd had shot out below him, between him and the other riders, and swung out in a swift, enveloping sweep.

  In the tense excitement Leslie had gotten away from Sterl. Lady Jane wanted to tear along with the mob. Between holding her and watching the tremendous stampede, Leslie had no attention for anything else. Red and Larry had gone on. Sterl had to get to her in quick time, and, if he had had a cannon to shoot, she could not have heard it. With that thought he had King racing down the line. Lady Jane was fast. Sterl had no fear she could not outrun the wildest of cattle. But being a mare of great spirit, she might act up at the crucial moment, when she should be running stretched out for safety.

  For Sterl this was the first time King had ever been extended. Fleet? He was like the wind. Fortunately, Leslie saw him coming and then the spur of cattle that had split away from the main herd. She did not lose her head. Quick as a flash she jerked Lady Jane around away from the sight of that frightful oncoming rush of hoofs, heads, horns. Released from strain and plunging under surprise and pain of the jagged spurs, Lady Jane leaped like an arrow from a bow.

  At this juncture King caught up with her. Sterl thought he would pass the bay, but he did not. The two horses closed in. Sterl pointed to Leslie’s stirrups. She was keen to grasp his intent—to slip her feet almost out and ride on her toes, so that in case Sterl saw fit he could lift her out of the saddle.

  Sterl’s terror left him. The girl could ride, and she could be trusted. Only an accident now was to be feared. He gazed back. The front of the outswinging spur of cattle had almost come up even with them. But this gain must mostly have been made before Sterl had espied the split. Downhill, however, these cattle would run. Sterl led Leslie off to the left, cutting off as much as he dared. The speed of the horses blurred Sterl’s eyes. But he saw when they flashed ahead of the pointed column of maddened steers. A narrow shave for Leslie, thought Sterl. Lady Jane kept on while Sterl was pulling King. He broke from level run to plunge and halt, prancing, his ears erect.

  The terrible rumble of the stampede still held Sterl ear-shocked. Down the line, Drake and four drovers were riding madly to push the offset of cattle back to the main mob. Larry and Red came sweeping in a wide curve around to the left. Leslie, no longer in danger, was pulling Lady Jane out of her stride.

  Then Sterl urged King to the fore again, with the object of turning the leaders of that spur to the right. The black was magnificent in action. He drove right to the front. A lean, rangy steer, red-eyed and wild, led that mutiny from the main herd. Four abreast his followers came, widening their number to the rear.

  Sterl shot the leader. The great steer plunged to plow the earth. The others overran him, leaped and swerved. Larry and Red came up with flaming guns. The drovers behind were lost in dust. The cowboys and Larry turned that spur back toward the main herd, and in less than a quarter of a mile the split had closed up. To the left, scarcely farther than that, Sterl saw the timber belt and the shining river. It was wide, and the opposite bank looked steep and high. Farther upstream the bank appeared to slope gradually. As the mob was headed quarteringly up the river, there was hope that a major catastrophe might be averted.

  The stampede had a half-mile front. Part of that front, clear across the flood of bobbing horns and heads and backs, moved in plain sight, unobscured by the dust that rolled back to hide the majority of the mob. All that could possibly be done by Sterl and his comrades, and the drovers sweeping from behind, had been accomplished, and it was a good job that saved thousands of cattle.

  Sterl, never forgetting Leslie, gazed back to espy her trotting Lady Jane at a goodly distance behind. He waved his sombrero, but was not sure she saw him. He had no doubt, however, that she would give the mob a wide margin. Red was riding ahead toward a ridge under which the stampede was rolling. Sterl, and all the others, joined him on this vantage point. Their yells to one another were meaningless, so far as hearing was concerned. Even the stupendous roar had apparently ceased. But Sterl felt the vibration of the earth under King.

  The climax of the stampede engaged the riders in rapt and fascinated attention. Just under the watchers swept a mighty torrent of beef, indistinct through the streaming dust. Following that flood forward, Sterl’s sight came to the front of the mob. It rolled on, swallowing up the green, headed for the bend of the river, the steep bank of which could be seen by the watchers. The conformity of the land had something to do with the turn of the stampede which, like water, followed the line of least resistance.

  The vanguard of the mob rolled out of sight to reappear in a moment, splitting around trees, and like a juggernaut, rolling the brush flat, to plunge over the bank in one long cascade of cattle distorted in the air. In concerted fall they hit the water in a tremendous splash. The bank was steep with a drop of twenty feet. And as the continuous steam of cattle poured over it, there ensued an appalling, threshing mêlée. The foremost line had no chance to rise under the shock of following lines. But presently out of the spouting, muddy splashes, heads of swimming cattle appeared. They milled around in bewilderment while the ghastly downpour of heavy bodies piled into the river. Some cattle struck out for the opposite shore.

  The stampede rolled by under Sterl and his horrified comrades. Long as that tragedy seemed, it must have taken only a few moments for nearly eight thousand cattle to run down the slope. After the mob passed them, the tremble of the earth ceased, the roar again permeated deafened ears. It lessened in volume. It changed into that other sound—the incessant crash of water in a maëlstrom and the long-drawn, horrid bawl of frenzied cattle, that gradually overcame the lessening roar.

  Back to the plunging waterfall of cattle Sterl’s gaze swept. The river now was full of horned heads, moving, milling, cracking in collision, making for the opposite shore. The bank of that side appeared to be low, and wading cattle proved there was a bar.

  Sterl saw the last quarter of the stampede run and roll and plunge down a bank, the steepness of which had been cut and plowed on a slope to the water’s edge. Strangest of all this strange spectacle was the sudden cessation of rolling, trampling roar.

  The imperturbable Red was the first to recover from that sight. He lighted a cigarette.

  “Not too bad! Gawd A’mighty shore is on Stanley Dann’s side! I wouldn’t have given a handful of Mexican pesos for thet herd. An’ lo an’ behold, heah they air, most of them, swimmin’ acrost, wadin’ out.”

  “Men,” Drake ejaculated, “a bridge of cattle saved the mob!”

  “Yes! And that bridge was Ormiston’s! He wasn’t going to let his mob mix with Dann’s!”

  “Haw! Haw!” rolled out the red-headed cowboy’s caustic mirth. “Wal, fellers, Ormiston’s cattle got the start an’ cut in ahaid. An’ am I tickled! It shore was a sight for sore eyes.”<
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  “Who was the drover that got trapped and rode down?” queried Larry.

  “One of Ormiston’s,” Sterl replied. “The other bolted with Roland.”

  “Yeah? We can plant him in the mawnin’, if there’s any of him left,” said Red. “Come on. It’s all over but the shoutin’, except we’ve got a hell of a job yet.”

  As they turned away from the riverbank to find a place to get down to the water, Sterl happened to think that Leslie had told him camp had been pitched on this side.

  “Can the wagons be driven over?”

  “No, indeed-ee. But up there the approaches are easier. Rollie said we could get them over somehow.”

  “All right. Drake, you heard Leslie,” Sterl went on to Drake, who rode beside him. “What’ll we do?”

  “Looks like a river drove. What do you say?” rejoined Drake.

  Sterl surveyed the river again, which certainly presented a colorful and animated scene. “Let me have Larry, Red, and Cedric. There’s a good many crazy cattle swimming downstream. And in the middle there’s an unholy mess milling around. We’ll turn them upstream. Some of them are going to drown, Drake. You see that. Take the rest of the men and rustle up to where the cattle can wade out.”

  “Fellers, I see Ormiston’s outfit up there,” Red interposed, pointing his cigarette. “Trailin’ up his mob! I’d like to heah him, when he sees thet animal bridge of cattle wearin’ his brand.”

  “I don’t like that idea, but I’ll have to go,” returned Drake, and he galloped off, accompanied by the other horsemen.

  “Ormiston will be cry-eyed,” Sterl said. “I’m sorry for the cattle. But I’m tickled. He swore he wouldn’t let his mob mix with Dann’s.”

  Presently Sterl found a ravine that opened at the edge of the water. “Leslie, this will be work. Won’t you go back to camp?”

  “Of course, if you say so. But can’t I help? Sterl, you are always trying to save me from…from everything. It’s kind of you. Only I want to ride and take my medicine, as Red calls it. Pretty soon I’ll have to. You’ll have to let me.”

  “Right-o,” Sterl declared heartily. “You’ve got more sense than I have. And I’ve more sentiment than you.”

  “So you say, cowboy.”

  They reached the river where the ravine ended level with the water. “Load your guns, boys,” advised Sterl, suiting action to words. “It’ll save swimming your horses to shoot in front of a steer or cow. Bullets will turn them.”

  “Pard, this heah river is deep, but it ain’t runnin’,” Red observed.

  “Stagnant! Gosh, I hadn’t noticed that…. Look at the high-water marks on the banks!”

  “In flood time the water runs over these banks,” added Red.

  “Yes, and the rainy season is not so far away,” Larry said.

  “Aw, hell, it ain’t nothin’,” drawled Red, “nothin’ a-tall, as Dann says.”

  King did not require to be urged into the river, as the other horses. Red called the black a duck. Sterl surveyed the wide channel where just above them thousands of cattle were swimming.

  “Red, I don’t like this,” Sterl called.

  “Neither do I. But we gotta take to the water. Once that mess gets haided over, we’ll be OK.”

  “But it’s a long swim. If a horse gave out, it’d be good night. For the horse, anyway. Leslie, stick close to me. We must keep out of the mess.”

  Cedric and Larry were already out in the river where stragglers from the herd were swimming aimlessly. On the opposite side, above them, hundreds of cattle were pawing at the steep bank, lunging up to plunge back, and floundering. Some of them were wading, too, which indicated a strip of shallow water under that bank. Red swam his horse to a point one-third the way across, while Sterl with Leslie divided the rest of the width of the river between them.

  They headed up the river in the face of as remarkable a conglomeration of animals as Sterl had ever been witness to. And the bawling clamor equaled the scene. The swimming horses and the yells and shots of their riders soon had all the stragglers headed in the right direction. Sterl made a hasty judgment that there were five thousand cattle in the river. A long string was wading out above. The danger point appeared to be less than a quarter of a mile beyond—and consisted of a mass of cattle twisting, plunging, in an intricate tangle. It relieved Sterl to see Drake and the other riders pile into the river at that point and make for the great maëlstrom. It was a risky job, if they got too close.

  “Sterl, look on the bank!” shrieked Leslie.

  Then Sterl espied Ormiston with Hathaway and the other drovers on the shore above the yellow, trampled slope which the cattle had cut through the bank. Below them stretched a long line of dead and dying cattle—the bridge of death—across which the main mob had poured into the river. Heads and horns and legs stuck up out of the crushed and trampled mass. No wonder the drovers sat their horses, appalled at the ghastly sight. But Ormiston, on foot, raged to and fro, flinging his arms, stamping and lunging. The roar of his fury sounded above the bawl of cattle. Sterl cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled in stentorian voice: “Hey, you dumbhead! Shoot the dying cattle!”

  Ormiston heard, for he roared curses back at Sterl. The keen-eared Red heard, too, because his wild Comanche whoop pealed across the water.

  “Yes, nice disposition Ormiston has,” Sterl called. “Beryl has a sweet future ahead, if she marries that hombre.”

  “We’ll never let her,” Leslie returned hotly.

  Some of the drovers with Ormiston heeded Sterl’s humane suggestion, and began to shoot the crippled and drowning cattle. Sterl made for a strip of sandy bank beyond the bend and on the far side, Leslie following close behind.

  They were making progress very carefully, when Leslie cried: “Sterl! Some horrid beast! There!”

  An alligator, small in Sterl’s estimate, being less than ten feet long, was sliding off the bar into the water. Sterl did not waste any seconds in sending a bullet into the reptile. It threshed, whirled, and sank. Lady Jane lunged out on the bar. Sterl quickly had King beside her.

  “What…was that?” panted Leslie.

  “Alligator. Didn’t you hear that war whoop of Red’s? All in the day’s ride, Les.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ve had enough…for this day. Lady Jane is winded.”

  “She is, at that,” replied Sterl, noting the bay’s heaving sides. “Rest here, Les, and then keep to this bar. Look out for more varmints.”

  King gave a huge heave, and then appeared to breathe normally again. Water and land were the same to him. Sterl rode up the sandbar to a point even with the upper edge of the mob. Then he surveyed the scene. The river was full of cattle so closely packed that steers and cows would lunge up on others and sink them. Across, nearer the other side, Red and his two comrades had their contingent of cattle headed out. Red, in fact, was making for the milling mob on the far side. On second glance, Sterl saw that the dozen or more drovers strung out behind the great mob, shooting, yelling, making splashes, had turned the line in that quarter. The rear and center areas of cattle were headed across but could not make much headway owing to the eddying mass of animals beyond.

  Sterl let King go, and soon he was swimming gallantly to join the other horses. Sterl saw now what the daring cowboy was up to, and the old thrill coursed over him, recalling the numberless exploits of his comrade.

  Red had untied his lasso. Cedric and Larry, who followed him closely, had exchanged their guns for ropes. Red was mounted on Jester, and that horse appeared to be some relation to a fish. He passed the end of the mob, the quarter, and, when he reached the center, Red whirled the loop around his head with that old trenchant cry—“Ki-yi! Yippi-yip!”—and let it fly to rope a big steer around the horns. Turning Jester toward the bank, Red literally dragged that steer out of the wheeling circle. It made a break. And a break like that was a crucial thing for a herd of stampeded cattle. Below Red a few rods, Larry roped another steer and turned shoreward. Cedric followed suit
. Then one steer and cow and another and another got into those openings, until the wheel of twisting horns and snouts broke and a stream of cattle, like oil, flowed away from the mob. It took less time for the whole mob to be on the move across the river than it had taken for Red and his followers to break the milling mass.

  The Diamantina was two hundred yards and more wide there, and it appeared narrow because the width and half a mile of its length had been full of cattle. But once the mob had caught the instinct of the leaders and had gotten headed right, the drovers had a reprieve from their strenuous labors. Sterl had no accurate account of the time it took to get the cattle across, after they had stampeded into the river, but he was amazed to find it afternoon.

  Red, with Larry and Cedric, had long disappeared over the far bank. If there was grass on that side, the chances were greatly in favor of the stampede being over. But Red would have that in mind and would stop any flurry of the leaders, before the main mob had mounted the bank.

  Nevertheless, Sterl experienced a vast relief when he, the last of the drovers to mount the bank and go through the trampled muddy belt of brush and timber, saw the great mob quietly grazing, as if no untoward event had come to pass.

  Drake said: “I call for some volunteers to stand guard till supper time.”

  They all volunteered, so he had to make a choice from Slyter’s drovers and those of the other partners.

  “This cain’t be the place to ford the wagons,” Red observed.