movements the result of a stampede.

We were drifting them bask towards the trail, when Nat Straw and two
of his men rode out from our herd and met us. "I always did claim that
it was better to be born lucky than handsome," said Straw as he rode
up. "One week Flood saves me from a dry drive, and the very next one,
he's just the right distance behind to catch my drift from a nasty
stampede. Not only that, but my peelers and I are riding Circle Dot
horses, as well as reaching the wagon in time for breakfast and lining
our flues with Lovell's good chuck. It's too good luck to last, I'm
afraid.

"I'm not hankering for the dramatic in life, but we had a run last
night that would curl your hair. Just about midnight a bunch of range
cattle ran into us, and before you could say Jack Robinson, our dogies
had vamoosed the ranch and were running in half a dozen different
directions. We rounded them up the best we could in the dark, and then
I took a couple of men and came back down the trail about twenty miles
to catch any drift when day dawned. But you see there's nothing like
being lucky and having good neighbors,--cattle caught, fresh horses,
and a warm breakfast all waiting for you. I'm such a lucky dog, it's a
wonder some one didn't steal me when I was little. I can't help it,
but some day I'll marry a banker's daughter, or fall heir to a ranch
as big as old McCulloch County."

Before meeting us, Straw had confided to our foreman that he could
assign no other plausible excuse for the stampede than that it was the
work of cattle rustlers. He claimed to know the country along the
Colorado, and unless it had changed recently, those hills to the
westward harbored a good many of the worst rustlers in the State. He