“By this time I had learned to obey orders while in that county, and got a fair night’s sleep, though there were men going and coming all night.  The next morning I was given my breakfast; my horse, well cuffed and saddled, was brought to the door, and with this parting advice I was given permission to go:  ’Son, if you’ve told us the truth, don’t look back when you ride away.  You’ll be watched for the first ten miles after leaving here, and if you’ve lied to us it will go hard with you.  Now, remember, don’t look back, for these are times when no one cares to be identified.’  I never questioned that man’s advice; it was ‘die dog or eat the hatchet’ with me.  I mounted my horse, waved the usual parting courtesies, and rode away.  As I turned into the trail about a quarter mile from the house, I noticed two men ride out from behind the stable and follow me.  I remembered the story about Lot’s wife looking back, though it was lead and not miracles that I was afraid of that morning.

“For the first hour I could hear the men talking and the hoofbeats of their horses, as they rode along always the same distance behind me.  After about two hours of this one-sided joke, as I rode over a little hill, I looked out of the corner of my eye back at my escort, still about a quarter of a mile behind me.  One of them noticed me and raised his gun, but I instantly changed my view, and the moment the hill hid me, put spurs to my horse, so that when they reached the brow of the hill, I was half a mile in the lead, burning the earth like a canned dog.  They threw lead close around me, but my horse lengthened the distance between us for the next five miles, when they dropped entirely out of sight.  By noon I came into the old stage road, and by the middle of the afternoon reached home after over sixty miles in the saddle without a halt.”

Just at the conclusion of Bull’s story, Flood rode in from the herd, and after picketing his horse, joined the circle.  In reply to an inquiry from one of the boys as to how the cattle were resting, he replied,—­

“This herd is breaking into trail life nicely.  If we’ll just be careful with them now for the first month, and no bad storms strike us in the night, we may never have a run the entire trip.  That last drink of water they had this evening gave them a night-cap that’ll last them until morning.  No, there’s no danger of any trouble to-night.”

For fully an hour after the return of our foreman, we lounged around the fire, during which there was a full and free discussion of stampedes.  But finally, Flood, suiting the action to the word by arising, suggested that all hands hunt their blankets and turn in for the night.  A quiet wink from Bull to several of the boys held us for the time being, and innocently turning to Forrest, Durham inquired,—­

“Where was—­when was—­was it you that was telling some one about a run you were in last summer?  I never heard you tell it.  Where was it?”