during the third day, but the saddle mules seemed to stand grief nobly, and by dint of ceaseless effort we reached the canon and turned the cattle loose into it.  This was the turning-point in the dry drive.  That night two men took half the remuda and went through to Horsehead Crossing, returning with them early the next morning, and we once more had fresh mounts.  The herd had been nursed through the canon during the night, and although it was still twelve miles to the river, I have always believed that those beeves knew that water was at hand.  They walked along briskly; instead of the constant moaning, their heads were erect, bawling loud and deep.  The oxen drawing the wagon held their chains taut, and the commissary moved forward as if drawn by a fresh team.  There was no attempt to hold the herd compactly, and within an hour after starting on our last lap the herd was strung out three miles.  The rear was finally abandoned, and when half the distance was covered, the drag cattle to the number of fully five hundred turned out of the trail and struck direct for the river.  They had scented the water over five miles, and as far as control was concerned the herd was as good as abandoned, except that the water would hold them.

Horsehead Crossing was named by General Pope.  There is a difference of opinion as to the origin of the name, some contending that it was due to the meanderings of the river, forming a horse’s head, and others that the surveying party was surprised by Indians and lost their stock.  None of us had slept for three nights, and the feeling of relief on reaching the Pecos, shared alike by man and beast, is indescribable.  Unless one has endured such a trial, only a faint idea of its hardships can be fully imagined—­the long hours of patient travel at a snail’s pace, enveloped by clouds of dust by day, and at night watching every shadow for a lurking savage.  I have since slept many a time in the saddle, but in crossing that arid belt the one consuming desire to reach the water ahead benumbed every sense save watchfulness.

All the cattle reached the river before the middle of the afternoon, covering a front of five or six miles.  The banks of the Pecos were abrupt, there being fully one hundred and twenty-five feet of deep water in the channel at the stage crossing.  Entrance to the ford consisted of a wagon-way, cut through the banks, and the cattle crowded into the river above and below, there being but one exit on either side.  Some miles above, the beeves had found several passageways down to the water, but in drifting up and down stream they missed these entrances on returning.  A rally was made late that afternoon to rout the cattle out of the river-bed, one half the outfit going above, the remainder working around Horsehead, where the bulk of the herd had watered.  I had gone upstream with Goodnight, but before we reached the upper end of the cattle fresh Indian sign was noticed.  There was enough broken country along the river to