Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/196

 son rode out of the corral after the last horse. He looked back, calculating his chance of getting down toward the road a little way before the fellow, with perhaps others, began to throw lead. At that moment a woman appeared in the dog-run and began to peg away at Simpson with a rifle.

He was then about half way between corral and the road, a matter of a hundred yards from the house. By the wild way the woman was shooting Simpson knew she was mad clear through. Anger and indignation at his bold move made her judgment poor; she didn't come near enough to even hit a horse. But she was doing some tall yelling and screaming, her voice splitting in high, wavering shrieks.

The man was cutting loose now, doing somewhat better work. He brought down a horse that ran beside Simpson. It stumbled headlong, and rolled over, its back broken by the shot.

Bullets were almost singeing his hair as Simpson galloped after the herd to the road, not troubling to do any shooting of his own, the distance being too great for any certainty with a revolver, and he had no ammunition to throw away. When she struck the road the Block E mare turned in the direction of home, as Simpson had confidently expected her to do, most of the others in the band trooping after her.

A number of the animals appeared to have a preference for the opposite direction, however, and a break in the ranks began, which Simpson had some trouble to stop before it drained away the bigger part of the herd. He got them going in the right direction with the loss of six,