The moon gleamed almost brazen, showing the cruel scars, the trenches torn by cloud-bursts, the lines wrought by the long, patient waiting of the earth for the lifting of the wrath of God.  Imperishable grief was writ on the land as on a human face.  The night wore on, the watches changed, the herd continued restless; not more than a third of it had bedded down.  The third watch was from one o’clock to half-past three in the morning.  Simpson and another “XXX” man, with two of the Wetmore outfit, made up a double watch, and rode, singing, about the herd, as the long, dreary watch wore away.  The cattle’s lowing had taken on a gasping, cracked sound that was more frightful than the maddened bellow of the early evening.  Simpson, who was past the age when men live the life of the saddle, felt the hardship keenly.  He had ridden since sunrise, but for the respite at noon and the scant time at the dry camp while the evening meal was being eaten.  He was more than half asleep now, as he lurched heavily in the saddle, crossing and recrossing his partner in the half-circle they completed about the herd.  Suddenly the sharp yelp of a coyote rang out; it seemed to come from no farther than twenty yards away.  The cattle heard it, too, and a wave of panic swept through them.  Simpson stiffened in his saddle.  The sound, which was repeated, was an exact reproduction of a coyote’s yelp, yet he knew that it was not a coyote.

The herd rose to its feet as a single steer, and for a second stood undetermined.  From a clump of sage-brush not more than two feet high fluttered something long and white like a sheet.  It waved in the wind as the cry was repeated.  The herd crashed forward in a stampede, Simpson in the lead on a tired horse, but a scant length ahead of a thousand maddened steers bolting in a panic of thirst and fear.

“Hell’s loose!” yelled the men in their blankets, making for the temporary rope corral to secure horses.  Simpson, tallow-colored with fear, clung like a cat to his horse, and dug the rowels in the beast’s flanks till they were bloody and dripping.  He had seen Jim Rodney’s face above the white cloth as it fluttered in the face of the herd that came pounding behind him with the rumble of nearing thunder.  He was too close to them to attempt to fire his revolver in the air in the hope of turning them, but the boys had evidently got into their saddles, to judge by the volley of shots that rang out and were answered.  Simpson alone rode ahead of the herd that tore after him, ripping up the earth as it came, bellowing in its blind fury.  His horse, a thoroughly seasoned cow-pony, sniffed the bedlam and responded to the goading spur.  She had been in cattle stampedes before, and, though every fibre ached with fatigue, she flattened out her lean body and covered ground to the length of her stride at each gallop.  The herd was so close that Simpson could smell the stench of their sweating bodies, taste their dust, and feel the scorch of their breath.