A red sun had begun to set over a red earth, and the men who had been out since noon-scouring the country for water, returned to say that none had been found, and they began to look into each other’s faces for the answer that none could give.  At sunset they made a dry camp; there was but enough water left to cook with.  Each man received, as a thirst-quenching ration, a can of tomatoes.  After supper they consulted, and it was agreed to trail the herd till midnight, taking advantage of the coolness to hurry them on as fast as possible to Green River.  The grave nature of their plight was indicated by the fact that no one smoked after supper.  Silent, sullen, they sat round, waiting for the foreman to give the order to advance.  He waited for the moon to come up.  Slowly it rose over the Bad Land Hills and hung round and full like a gigantic lantern.  The watches were arranged for the night with a double guard.  Every man in the outfit was beginning to have a feeling of panic that communicated itself to every other man, and as they looked at the herd, tractable now no longer, but a blind force that they must take chances with through the long watches of the night, while the thirst grew in the beasts’ parched throats, they foresaw what would in all probability happen; they thought of their women, of all that most strongly bound them to life, and they sat and waited dumbly.

The moon that night was too brilliant for benisons; the gaunt, red world lay naked and unshriven for the sin that long ago had brought upon it the wrath of God.  The picture was still that of the grotesque Chinese screen, with the headless dragon crawling endlessly; but the dream was long, centuries long, it seemed to the men listening to the bellowing of the herd.  And while they waited, the red grew dull and the dragon dingy, and its fury made its contortions the more horrible; and that was all the difference between day and night in the land of the red silence.  Sometimes the dragon split, and joints of it tried to turn back to the last water it had drunk; for cattle, though blinded with thirst, never forget the last stream at which they have quenched thirst, and will turn back to it, though they drop on the way.  But the men pressed them farther and farther, and for yet a little while the cattle yielded.

At midnight the saddle-stock was incapable of moving farther.  One horse had fallen and lay too weak to rise.  The others, limping and foot-sore, no longer responded to quirt and rowel.  The foreman ordered the herd thrown on the bed ground for the night.  The herders for the first watch began to circle.  The rest of the outfit took to its blankets to snatch a little rest for the double duty that awaited every man that night.  Now it is a time-honored belief among cow-men that the herd must be sung to, particularly when it is restless, and to-night they tried all the old favorites, the “Cow-boy’s Lament” being chief among them.  But the herd refused to be soothed, and round and round it circled; not once would it lie down.