Clanton took his turn at night herding for the first time the day of Warren’s visit to the camp.  Under a star-strewn sky he circled the sleeping herd, humming softly a stanza of a cowboy song.  Occasionally he met Billie Prince or Tim McGrath circling in the opposite direction.  The scene was peaceful as old age and beautiful as a fairy tale.  For under the silvery light of night the Southwest takes on a loveliness foreign to it in the glare of the sun.  The harsh details of day are lost in a luminous glow of mystic charm.

Jim had just ridden past Billie when the silence was shattered by a sudden fury of sound.  The popping of revolvers, the clanging of cow bells, the clash of tin boilers—­all that medley of discord which lends volume to the horror known as a charivari—­tore to shreds the harmony of the night.

“What’s that?” called Billie.

The hideous dissonance came from the side of the herd farthest from the camp.  Together the two riders galloped toward it.

“Peg-Leg Warren’s work,” guessed Clanton.

“Sure,” agreed Billie.  “Trying to stampede the herd.”

Already the cattle were bawling in wild terror, surging toward the camp to escape this unknown danger.  Both of the punchers drew their revolvers and fired rapidly into the herd.  It was impossible to check the rush, but they succeeded in deflecting it from the sleeping men.  Before the weapons were empty, the ground shook with a thunder of hoofs as the herd fled into the darkness.

Billie found himself in the van of the stampede.  He was caught in the rush and to save himself from being trampled down was forced to join the flight.  He was the center of a moving sea of backs, so hemmed in that if his pony stumbled life would be trodden out of him in an instant.  Except for occasional buffalo wallows the ground was level, but at any moment his mount might break a leg in a prairie-dog hole.

For the first mile or two the cattle were packed in a dense mass, shoulder to shoulder, all lumbering forward in wild-eyed panic.  The noise of their hoofs was like the continuous roll of thunder and the cloud of dust so thick that the throat of Prince was swollen with it.  It was only after the stampeded cattle had covered several miles that the formation of their aimless charge grew looser.  The pace slackened as the steers became leg-weary.  Now and again small bunches dropped from the drag or from one of the flanks.  Gradually Billie was able to work toward the outskirts.  His chance came when the herd poured into a swale and from it emerged into a more broken terrain.  Directly in front of the leaders was a mesa with a sharp incline.  Instead of taking the hill, the stampede split, part flowing to the right and part to the left.  The cow-puncher urged his flagged horse straight up the hill.