drifting herd, we turned them back on their course. It was high
noon when we reached his wagon and found the Mexican outfit still
keening over their dead comrade. We pushed the cattle, a mixed
herd of about twenty-five hundred, well past the camp, and riding
back, dismounted among the howling vaqueros. There was not the
semblance of sanity among them. The foreman, who could speak some
little English, at least his employer declared he could, was
carrying on like a madman, while a majority of the vaqueros were
playing a close second. The dead man had been carried in and was
lying under a tarpaulin in the shade of the wagon. Feeling that
my boys would stand behind me, and never offering to look at the
corpse, I inquired in Spanish of the vaqueros which one of the
men was their corporal. A heavy-set, bearded man was pointed out,
and walking up to him, with one hand I slapped him in the face
and with the other relieved him of a six-shooter. He staggered
back, turned ashen pale, and before he could recover from the
surprise, in his own tongue I berated him as a worthless cur for
deserting his employer over an accident. Following up the
temporary advantage, I inquired for the cook and horse-wrangler,
and intimated clearly that there would be other dead Mexicans if
the men were not fed and the herd and saddle stock looked after;
that they were not worthy of the name of vaqueros if they were
lax in a duty with which they had been intrusted.

"But Pablo is dead," piped one of the vaqueros in defense.

"Yes, he is," said G--G Cederdall in Spanish, bristling up to the
vaquero who had volunteered the reply; "and we'll bury him and a
half-dozen more of you if necessary, but the cattle will not be
abandoned--not for a single hour. Pablo is dead, but he was no