We were drifting them bask towards the trail, when Nat Straw and two of his men rode out from our herd and met us.  “I always did claim that it was better to be born lucky than handsome,” said Straw as he rode up.  “One week Flood saves me from a dry drive, and the very next one, he’s just the right distance behind to catch my drift from a nasty stampede.  Not only that, but my peelers and I are riding Circle Dot horses, as well as reaching the wagon in time for breakfast and lining our flues with Lovell’s good chuck.  It’s too good luck to last, I’m afraid.

“I’m not hankering for the dramatic in life, but we had a run last night that would curl your hair.  Just about midnight a bunch of range cattle ran into us, and before you could say Jack Robinson, our dogies had vamoosed the ranch and were running in half a dozen different directions.  We rounded them up the best we could in the dark, and then I took a couple of men and came back down the trail about twenty miles to catch any drift when day dawned.  But you see there’s nothing like being lucky and having good neighbors,—­cattle caught, fresh horses, and a warm breakfast all waiting for you.  I’m such a lucky dog, it’s a wonder some one didn’t steal me when I was little.  I can’t help it, but some day I’ll marry a banker’s daughter, or fall heir to a ranch as big as old McCulloch County.”

Before meeting us, Straw had confided to our foreman that he could assign no other plausible excuse for the stampede than that it was the work of cattle rustlers.  He claimed to know the country along the Colorado, and unless it had changed recently, those hills to the westward harbored a good many of the worst rustlers in the State.  He admitted it might have been wolves chasing the range cattle, but thought it had the earmarks of being done by human wolves.  He maintained that few herds had ever passed that river without loss of cattle, unless the rustlers were too busy elsewhere to give the passing herd their attention.  Straw had ordered his herd to drop back down the trail about ten miles from their camp of the night previous, and about noon the two herds met on a branch of Brady Creek.  By that time our herd had nearly three hundred head of the Ellison cattle, so we held it up and cut theirs out.  Straw urged our foreman, whatever he did, not to make camp in the Colorado bottoms or anywhere near the river, if he didn’t want a repetition of his experience.  After starting our herd in the afternoon, about half a dozen of us turned back and lent a hand in counting Straw’s herd, which proved to be over a hundred head short, and nearly half his outfit were still out hunting cattle.  Acting on Straw’s advice, we camped that night some five or six miles back from the river on the last divide.  From the time the second guard went on until the third was relieved, we took the precaution of keeping a scout outriding from a half to three quarters of a mile distant from the herd, Flood and Honeyman serving in that capacity.  Every precaution was taken to prevent a surprise; and in case anything did happen, our night horses tied to the wagon wheels stood ready saddled and bridled for any emergency.  But the night passed without incident.