Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/75

 would at least find some cows and chickens. In the chill dawn of the following morning, in a pouring rain, they started on their mission. They were gone until five o’clock in the evening; then the now familiar mountain cry, “Whoo-whoo,” came echoing through the woods. As I opened the door, Tom shouted, “Katharine, run out in the road and head off these cows.”

I knew by the tone and the voice that this was a “hurry-up” call; so, throwing the omnipresent shawl over my head, I dashed out of the house, and, as self-preservation is the first law of life, snatched up a pole that was propping up the limb of a peach tree, then flew down the path and out of the gate into the middle of the road, and, standing there in mud and rain, looked the field over. Away down the hill, in the road, stood the horses and wagon; in the latter I discerned several chicken-coops, from which protruded long feathered necks, with red-combed squawking heads. The pasture bars were down, and standing near them was Tom. A little higher up the hill a road branches off, and there Bert was stationed. Coming full-tilt toward me were three big, wild-eyed, galloping cows, with two very young-looking, spindle-shanked calves. I admit I was scared; but remembering my great-grandsires who fought in the Revolution, I raised the pole high in air, like a flagstaff, and stood firm. On came the bovine brigade until within a few rods of me, when suddenly