The march of the herd was slow and sullen.  The smaller cattle sheltered in the lee of the larger, moving compactly, as if the density of the herd radiated a heat of its own.  The saddle horses, southern bred and unacclimated, humped their backs and curled their heads to the knee, indicating, with the closing day, a falling temperature.  Suddenly, and as clear as the crack of a rifle, the voice of Dell Wells was heard in the lead:—­

“Come on, Joel; here’s our hackberry!  Here’s where the fight is won or lost!  Here’s where you point them while I rush them!  Come quick!”

The brothers shifted positions.  It was the real fight of the day.  Responding to spur and quirt, the horses sprang like hungry wolves at the cattle, and the gloomy column turned quartering into the eye of the storm.  But as on every other attempt to turn or mill the drifting herd, new leaders forged to the front and threatened to carry the drift past the entrance to the pocket.  The critical moment had arrived.  Dismounting, with a coiled rope in hand, Dell rushed on the volunteer leaders, batting them over the heads, until they whirled into the angling column, awakened from their stupor and panic-stricken from the assault of a boy, who attacked with the ferocity of a fiend, hissing like an adder or crying in the eerie shrill of a hyena in the same breath.  It worked like a charm!  Its secret lay in the mastery of the human over all things created.  Elated by his success, Dell stripped his coat, and with a harmless weapon in each hand, assaulted every contingent of new leaders, striking right and left, throwing his weight against their bodies, and by the magic of his mimic furies forcing them into obedience.

Meanwhile Joel had succeeded in holding the original leaders in line, and within a hundred yards from the turn, the shelter of the bend was reached.  The domestic bovine lows for the comfort of his stable, and no sooner had the lead cattle entered the sheltering nook, than their voices arose in joyous lowing, which ran back through the column for the first time since the storm struck.  Turning to the support of Dell, the older boy lent his assistance, forcing the angle, until the drag end of the column had passed into the sheltering haven.  The fight was won, and to Dell’s courage, in the decisive moment, all credit was due.  The human is so wondrously constructed and so infinite in variety, that where one of these brothers was timid the other laughed at the storm, and where physical courage was required to assault a sullen herd, the daring of one amazed the other.  Cattle are the emblem of innocence and strength, and yet a boy—­in spite of all that has been written to the contrary—­could dismount in the face of the wildest stampede, and by merely waving a handkerchief split in twain the frenzied onrush of three thousand beeves.

Dell recovered his horse, and the brothers rode back and forth across the mouth of the pocket.  The cattle were milling in an endless merry-go-round, contented under the sheltering bluffs, lowing for mates and cronies, while above howled the elements with unrelenting fury.