Page:From the West to the West.djvu/211



biggest of them till the aurochs changed his mind and turned to follow the stampeding herd.

The panic continued. The stampede was irresistible. The cattle were lost, and most of them were never heard of more, though it is said that Flossie, the companion and patient of Jean during the hours of her vigil on that never-to-be-forgotten night in the Black Hills,—Flossie, the faithful, enduring, and kindly-eyed milch cow whose calf had been killed on the road,—reappeared long afterwards in the sagebrush wilds of Baker County, Oregon, with quite a following of her children, grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, all but herself as wild as so many deer. Flossie herself was recognized, they say, by the Ranger brand; and her hide, with the letters J. R. still visible behind the shoulder-blade, is to-day a valued relic of departed years in the mansion of a prominent actor in the drama of that eventful summer.

But what of Brownson? All day the hapless watchers of the camp had strained their eyes and ears for sight or sound of him, in vain.

"He must have been caught with cramps, or been dashed against the rocks by the current, for I saw him drown," said Jordan, at sundown, as he rejoined the helpless watchers near the wagons.

Meanwhile, the men and women of the camp had not been idle. The lightest wagon-box the train afforded was selected and pressed into service for a ferry-boat; and while the men made oars, rowlocks, and rudder as best they could with the materials at hand, the women skilfully caulked the seams of the wagon-bed with an improvised substitute for oakum, under the supervision of the Little Doctor, making it tolerably water-tight. The wagon-box was then replaced on wheels and hauled upstream about half-a-dozen, miles to a little valley where the river was wide, the banks low, and the water comparatively shoal and calm.

It was conjectured by Captain Ranger that the entire