feverish and ungovernable. The lead cattle turned back several times,
wandering aimlessly in any direction, and it was with considerable
difficulty that the herd could be held on the trail. The rear overtook
the lead, and the cattle gradually lost all semblance of a trail herd.
Our horses were fresh, however, and after about two hours' work, we
once more got the herd strung out in trailing fashion; but before a
mile had been covered, the leaders again turned, and the cattle
congregated into a mass of unmanageable animals, milling and lowing in
their fever and thirst. The milling only intensified their sufferings
from the heat, and the outfit split and quartered them again and
again, in the hope that this unfortunate outbreak might be checked. No
sooner was the milling stopped than they would surge hither and yon,
sometimes half a mile, as ungovernable as the waves of an ocean. After
wasting several hours in this manner, they finally turned back over
the trail, and the utmost efforts of every man in the outfit failed to
check them. We threw our ropes in their faces, and when this failed,
we resorted to shooting; but in defiance of the fusillade and the
smoke they walked sullenly through the line of horsemen across their
front. Six-shooters were discharged so close to the leaders' faces as
to singe their hair, yet, under a noonday sun, they disregarded this
and every other device to turn them, and passed wholly out of our
control. In a number of instances wild steers deliberately walked
against our horses, and then for the first time a fact dawned on us
that chilled the marrow in our bones,--_the herd was going blind_.

The bones of men and animals that lie bleaching along the trails
abundantly testify that this was not the first instance in which the
plain had baffled the determination of man. It was now evident that
nothing short of water would stop the herd, and we rode aside and let
them pass. As the outfit turned back to the wagon, our foreman seemed