Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/275

Rh Johnny grunted and the silence began again, a silence which endured for several hours, such a silence that can exist between two real friends and be full of understanding. It endured between them and was not even broken by the distant, dim flare of a match, nor when low sounds floated up to them and gradually grew into the clicking and rattle of horns against horns, and the low rumble of many hurrying hoofs—hoofs hurrying toward the water which bovine nostrils had long since scented. The rumble grew rapidly as the thirst-tortured herd stampeded for Bitter Spring. A revolver flashed here and there on the edges of the animated avalanche and then a sweet silence came to the desert, soon to be tunefully and pleasantly broken by the soft lowing of cattle leg deep in the saving water.

wailed a cracked voice, the owner relieving his feelings. "Thorpe, if you don't wrastle a hot snack d—d quick, I'll eat yore ears!”

"Give him anythin' to stop that yowlin'," bellowed another. "Can't he learn nothin' but 'Th' Dyin' Nun'? Thank heaven he never learned no more of it. A sick calf ain't no cheerfuller than him."

"You'll have to eat lively, boys," sang out the trail-boss. "Everythin' is on th' move in an hour. If yo're in such a cussed hurry, Jud, get some wood for him. Take it