The storm had disturbed the herd from the instant of the first flash of lightning, and, as other flashes followed, the excitement of the animals increased until, at last, throwing off all restraint, they dashed blindly for the open prairie.
Desperately as the guards struggled to turn the herd, their efforts had no more effect than if they had been seeking to beat back the waves of the sea.
Tad was recalled to a realization of his position when, in a dazzling flash of lightning, he caught a momentary glimpse of Big-foot Sanders bearing down on him at a tremendous speed. Tad saw something else, too--a surging ma.s.s of panic-stricken cattle, heads hanging low, horns glistening and eyes protruding, sweeping toward him.
"Ride! Ride!" shouted Big-foot.
"Wh--where?" asked Tad in as strong a voice as he could command.
"Keep out of their way. Work up to the point as soon as you can and try to point in the leaders. We"ve got to keep the herd from scattering.
I"ll stay in the center and lead them till the others get here. Bob will send along some of the fellows to help you as soon as possible."
While delivering his orders Big-foot had turned his pony, and, with Tad, was riding swiftly in advance of the cattle, in the same direction that they were traveling. To have paused where they were would have meant being crushed and trampled beneath the hoofs of the now maddened animals.
"Now, git!"
Tad pulled his pony slightly to the right.
"Use your gun!" shouted Big-foot. "Burn plenty of powder in front of their noses if they press you too closely!"
He had forgotten that the lad did not carry a gun, nor did he realize that he was sending the boy into a situation of the direst peril.
Tad, by this time, had a pretty fair idea of the danger of the task that had been a.s.signed to him. But he was not the boy to flinch in an emergency.
Pressing the rowels of his spurs against the flanks of the reaching pony and urging the little animal on with his voice, Tad swept obliquely along in front of the herd.
Now and then a flash of lightning would show him a solid ma.s.s of cattle hurling themselves upon him. At such times the lad would swerve his mount to the left a little and shoot ahead for a few moments, in an attempt to get sufficient lead of them to enable him to reach the right or upper end of the line.
In this way Tad Butler soon gained the outside of the leaders. By dropping back and working up the line, he pointed them in to the best of his ability.
The lightning got into his eyes as he strained them wide open to take account of his surroundings. He would pa.s.s a hand over his face instinctively, as if to brush the flash away, groping for an instant for his bearings after he had done so.
He remembered what Bob Stallings had said in speaking of a stampede.
"Keep them straight and hold them together. That"s all you can do. You can"t stop them," the foreman had said.
The lad was doing this now as best he could, yet he wondered that none of the cowmen had come to his a.s.sistance.
Again and again did Tad Butler throw his pony against the great unreasoning wave on the right of the line, and again and again was he buffeted back, only to return to the battle with desperate courage.
All at once the lad found himself almost surrounded by the beasts. A lightning flash had shown him this at the right time. Had it been a few seconds later Tad must have gone down under their irresistible rush.
The pony, seeming to realize the danger fully as much as did its rider, bent every muscle in its little body to bear itself and rider to safety.
Yet try as they would, they were unable to get back to the right point to take up the turning work again.
The cattle had closed in about the lad in almost a crescent formation, Tad"s position being about the center of it.
"Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!" shouted Tad, taking up the cry that he had heard the cowboys utter earlier in the stampede.
His voice was lost in the roar of the storm and the thunder of the rushing herd.
Tad realized that there was only one thing left for him to do. That was to keep straight ahead and ride. He would have to ride fast, too, if he were to keep clear of the long-legged Mexican cattle.
They were descending a gradual slope that led down into a broad, sandy arroyo where still stood the rotting stumps of oak and cottonwood trees that once lined the ancient water course.
By this time the main herd lay to the rear nearly two miles, the cattle having separated into several bands. However, the lad was unaware of this.
Suddenly, in the darkness, rider and pony crashed into a dense mesquite thicket.
There was not a second to hesitate, for they were already in. The leading cattle tore in after Tad with a crashing of brush and a rattle of horns--sounds that sent a chill up and down his spine in spite of all the lad"s st.u.r.dy courage.
The herd was closing in on him, leaving the boy no alternative but to go through the thicket himself, and to go fast at that.
Tad formed his plan instantly. He made up his mind to ride it out and let his pony have its own way. Yet the boy never expected to come through the mesquite thicket without being swept from his pony and trampled under the feet of the savage steers.
He gave the pony a free rein, clutched both cantle and pommel of the saddle and braced himself for the shock that he was sure would come. The cow pony tore through the growth at a fearful pace, while the boy"s clothes hung in shreds where they had been raked by the mesquite thorns.
All at once Tad felt himself going through the air with a different motion. He realized that he was falling. The pony had stumbled and with its rider was plunging headlong to the ground. The cattle were thundering down upon them.
CHAPTER X
A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE
"That settles me!" said the lad bitterly.
The next instant he hit the ground with a force that partially stunned him. His pony, whose nose had ploughed the ground, was up like a flash.
Realizing its danger, the little animal gave a snort and plunged into the mesquite, leaving its rider lying on the ground with a fair prospect of being crushed to death beneath, the hoofs of the stampeding steers.
Tad recovered himself almost instantly. His first instinct was to run, in the hope of overtaking the fleeing pony.
"That"ll be sure death," he told himself.
The cattle were almost upon him. If he were to do anything to save himself he would have to act quickly.
It came to him suddenly that what the pony had fallen over might be made to act as a shield for himself. The boy sprang forward, groping in the dark amid the roaring of the storm and the thunder of the maddened herd.
His hands touched a log. He found that it had so rotted away on one side as to make a partial sh.e.l.l. It was not enough to admit a human body, but it served as a sort of screen for him. Tad burrowed into it as far as he could get.
"I hope there are no snakes in here," he thought, snuggling close.
Yet between the two he preferred to take his chances with snakes, at that moment, rather than with the crazy steers.
The leaders of the steers cleared the log, just grazing it with their hind feet as they went over, sending a shower of dust and decayed wood over Tad.
The cattle immediately following the leaders did not fare so well. A number of them, leaping over the log at the same instant, fell headlong as the pony had done before them. However, the steers were less fortunate. Before they were able to scramble to their feet, others following had tumbled over on top of them, and Tad Butler found himself wedged in behind a barricade of bellowing cattle, whose flying hoofs made him hastily burrow deeper into the decayed log.