Another incident occurred near the middle of the afternoon. From some
cause or other, the hind leg of a steer, after having been tied up,
became loosened. No one noticed this; but when, after several
successive trials, during which Barney McCann exhausted a large
vocabulary of profanity, the mule team was unable to move the steer,
six of us fastened our lariats to the main rope, and dragged the beef
ashore with great _éclat_. But when one of the boys dismounted to
unloose the hobbles and rope, a sight met our eyes that sent a
sickening sensation through us, for the steer had left one hind leg in
the river, neatly disjointed at the knee. Then we knew why the mules
had failed to move him, having previously supposed his size was the
difficulty, for he was one of the largest steers in the herd. No doubt
the steer's leg had been unjointed in swinging him around, but it had
taken six extra horses to sever the ligaments and skin, while the
merciless quicksands of the Canadian held the limb. A friendly shot
ended the steer's sufferings, and before we finished our work for the
day, a flight of buzzards were circling around in anticipation of the
coming feast.

Another day had been lost, and still the South Canadian defied us. We
drifted the cattle back to the previous night camp, using the same bed
ground for our herd. It was then that The Rebel broached the subject
of a crossing at the island which we had examined that morning, and
offered to show it to our foreman by daybreak. We put two extra horses
on picket that night, and the next morning, before the sun was half an
hour high, the foreman and The Rebel had returned from the island down
the river with word that we were to give the ford a trial, though we
could not cross the wagon there. Accordingly we grazed the herd down
the river and came opposite the island near the middle of the
forenoon. As usual, we cut off about one hundred of the lead cattle,