Nabours came back as soon as he sensed the nature of what lay ahead.
“Throw ’em off, boys!” he called hurriedly. “Hold ’em in here and don’t go a foot further, or we’ll lose every hoof we’ve got. That country’s full of buffalo and everything else, and something has set them going.”
Leaving his best men to keep the cattle under control, he took with him two or three men and rode rapidly on ahead. They pulled up at a little eminence.
“Great Snakes!” said one of the men. “Just look there!”
The entire country was dotted with scattered black masses of moving buffalo. The numbers seemed endless, uncountable. Something had pushed them east of the more abundant short-grass range far to the westward.
“We’ll have to break that up or we’ll never get through,” said Nabours. “Yet I was thinking this country up here wouldn’t feed cows! Just look at the game!”
They could see also band after band of wild horses, magnificent animals with high heads and heavy manes and tails; creatures that never failed to awaken keen enthusiasm among even the most experienced plainsman. Now, also, they were in an elk country, and herds of these creatures trotted off, following the same general drift to the east and south. There was such an immeasurably vast blending of wild life as not any one of these men ever expected to see again.
“Look! Look, men!” called Nabours, who was studying the sight eagerly. “If that ain’t cows I’m a liar!”
He was entirely right. Caught in the general drift, there were two or three score of domestic cattle, of no man might tell what origin; no doubt outcasts or strays of some Osage Indian settlement to the east. The sight of these especially caused the blood of the range men to leap.
“Don’t tell me this ain’t a good country!” exclaimed Nabours. “Them’s cows!”
“They’ve got right funny horns,” said Lem Hersey critically; and forsooth these cattle, descendants of some Eastern stock, even then lacked the wide horns of the old Texan breed.
“I ain’t particular about their horns,” remarked Nabours. “They got hide enough to hold the Fishhook brand, and they look like strays to me. Any of ’em comes around here too clost I ain’t going to let his horns stand in the way. We need some more strays.