Firelight threw its orange arc against the night's steel-black pall. Dark banners whipped across the silvered half-moon. The stars were shrouded, the ceiling of heaven had dropped earthward, and thus imprisoned the gaining wind swept over the earth with a hollow, droning reverberation. At sunset it had been both clear and warm. Now a raw dampness touched men and beasts. Sand sprayed across the prairie, a stem of sage sailed into the light and dropped by Quagmire's crossed boots. Eerie voices beat through space—like that of a rifle shot. The canvas on the chuck wagon slatted against its ribs. One solitary drop of rain fell hissing into the coals.
Quagmire turned his wizened face and nosed the air. "Trouble comin' hell bent out o' the east. Why has they got to be an east, anyhow? Ain't south an' west ample? I think I'll tie my ears down afo' they float away."
A rider cruised around the near side of the herd, and the echo of his improvised song reached the fire. "Lie down, you brutes, lie down. Oh, a Texas gal is the gal for me—Lie down, you measly, locoed receptacles o' sin. The wind is risin' an' so are the dogies' tails—lie doooowwn."
"It takes a good bass voice to soothe 'em," opined Quagmire sagely.
"If this keeps up," murmured his near neighbor, "yo'll be singin' soprano outen the corner o' yo' mouth befo' mo'nin'."
Quagmire crushed this innuendo impressively. "Billy, yo' ort to know I nev' sing soprano lessen I'm vaccinated to the eyebrows with that filthy mescal." A burst of rain struck the fire, frying in the flames. Quagmire reached around and squirmed into his slicker. "Guess I'm goin' to get that bath I fo'got to take las' winter. Dakota, howdedo."
The flat Nebraskan plain stood behind. Both forks of the Platte, that river a mile wide and an inch deep, had baptized the herd. The Niobrara had seen their camp fire; they had passed one stretch of the bad lands and put the Belle Fourche to the rear. Due west lay the dark, granitic folds of the Black Hills; due west lay Deadwood, born of gold fever and now thundering along on the flood tide of prosperity. Indian country. Once they had sighted a brave on a parallel ridge, sitting like a statue on his horse, watching them; and since they were schooled in the red man's thievery they loosened the flaps of rifle boots and doubly guarded the horse herd.
Sand and rain swirled about the group. Tom heard the tempo of the wind rising. Thunder rumbled away off. Things movable began to shiver and strain, and the old cook slid around his wagon, battening down the canvas. Quagmire, true to his ingrained habit, hovered by the fire and nursed it jealously.
"Talk about soprano," mused Quagmire, "that wind will shore be singin' it in a minute. I hope them cow critters have got a clear conscience this night."
"Stampede?"
It was Lispenard speaking. He had come out of darkness and squatted across from Quagmire. Tom Gillette, studying the man, had difficulty in realizing it was the same gay and debonair classmate he had once so freely confided in. In the flickering light the Blond Giant looked as ragged and unkempt as any other of the party. The soft protecting flesh had quite disappeared; under the stubble of his whiskers his jaw bones ran grimly to the jutting button of his chin. And since the night San Saba had brought him back from Ogallala, both drunk and viciously angry, he had adopted a kind of brooding reserve. The man was in splendid shape. At every gesture he made Tom saw the muscles rippling and flexing. Otherwise, Tom was not so certain. It occurred to him that Blondy's big and rolling eyes no longer attracted him, nor did he like the way Blondy's lips now and then slid back from his teeth. In school, his friend had cut quite a swath; sundered from that atmosphere, he seemed never yet to have shaken himself together.
"Stampede?" echoed Quagmire. "Well, I ain't wishin' to draw down any lightnin' by speakin' that word too loud. Who knows what goes on inside a critter's mind? I've seen 'em stand through weather so plumb bad yo' couldn't draw breath. Turn right around on a ca'm peaceful night an' they'd roll tails if a leaf budged. Critters ain't reasonable—no more'n a man."
The crew, unable to sleep, had drawn near the fire. San Saba, a mere silhouette in his gleaming slicker, stood in the background while all the others squatted on their haunches. Tom, himself a little removed from the fire, saw the foreman's small red eyes dart from man to man. Billy, the skeptic who adjoined Quagmire, thrust a sidling glance at Lispenard and of a sudden he chuckled, slapping one hand across his knee.
"Quagmire, yo'-all remember that twister we bucked down by the Nueces? I wouldn't ever have believed sech a thing could happen if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes."
The rest of the crew, almost in unison, nodded confirmation. Quagmire studied Billy with a long, mild glance before replying. "Mean the time it picked up Anse Loving's herd an' carried it acrost the river?"
"Wasn't Loving's herd atall," denied Billy. "It was a bunch o' Hogpen stock."
"No such thing. It was Loving's outfit we worked for that year."
"Why, by..."
Lispenard threw in his contribution. "You trying to fool me again? Some dam' fish story about wind picking up cattle bodily..."
Profound silence. Quagmire vainly stirred the fire. "Ever hear of a twister? Don't they teach it in Eastern gee-og-ruffies?"
"Certainly, but..."
"Ever hear of 'em liftin' buildin's offen the ground?"
Lispenard raised his shoulders. "Well, go on, then. That's straight enough. But a whole herd doesn't sound possible."
Quagmire pointed into the darkness. "It's only blowin' mild right now. But yo' go out there an' try to stand up in it. Then imagine a twister."
There was no answer. Quagmire brooded over the remnant of flame, water sluicing down his hat. He appeared to have forgotten the story, yet ever and anon he lifted his thin and wrinkled face to listen to what the wind told him. Slight uneasiness rode the shoulders of the crew.
"Anyhow, it was the Hogpen outfit," muttered Billy somberly.
That roused Quagmire. "Why, man, don't yo' recollect that wall-eyed buckskin I rode with the blaze?"
"Mebbe so," assented Billy, now dubious.
"Sho'" proceeded Quagmire. "I'm tellin' yo' I rode him that night. Black? Say, it was blacker'n the inside o' a crow's windpipe. Never saw a twister come up faster. We was on the east bank of the Nueces."
"West bank," corrected Billy.
"That's right—west bank. On the west bank when it come. Right by that barn, yo' remember? No time to shove the herd aside. Funnel bearin' down on us hell bent. Every man for himself. Me, I lights out on that buckskin. Hadn't gone fifty feet when it struck. Heard an awful crash—must've been the barn—and then I sorter feels like yo'd feel after too much mescal. Yo' understan'—kinda feather-headed. I digs in my spurs, but I wasn't on no horse atall. I was fifty feet offen the ground, goin' over the river. The buckskin had vamoosed. Thought I'd lost him. Figgered I was dead when that twister let me go an' I dropped. Sho', but it's a queer feelin' to get up with the birds."
There was a rumble in the outer darkness, and the crew, to a man, straightened. A puncher rode in, dripping wet. "Still peaceable," he announced briefly, and disappeared. Tom relaxed, grinning when he saw how Lispenard's attention fastened to Quagmire's tale.
"Must've been a mile farther along," continued Quagmire, "with me gettin' higher all the times when I hears a sound like an express train comin' by. It was that dam' barn, with the top ripped off. They was ten ton o' hay in that shebang, yet it sailed by me like a shot. Then I hears a mos' piteous nicker, an' it's the buckskin, right behin' the barn. I remember I sorter prayed the saddle wouldn't fall offen him. Silver inlay saddle, an' it cost a heap.
"Well, we was a good six miles east o' the river by then, an' the twister begins to slide away from me. Me, I falls faster'n a shot duck. Had a watch on me, an' I recalls I takes it out an' throws it clear, not wantin' to light on glass. I knowed I was as good as extinct right then, an' I figgered I'd better pray. But how's a man to pray what