Cow-Country | Page 8

would ride
slowly around the herd, pushing it quietly into a smaller compass. Then,
if Buddy were not too sleepy, he would watch the cattle lie down to
chew their cuds in deep, sighing content until they slept. It reminded
Buddy vaguely of when mother popped corn in a wire popper, a long
time ago-before they all lived in a wagon and went with the herd. First
one and two-then there would be three, four, five, as many as Buddy
could count-then the whole herd would be lying down.
Buddy loved the camp-fires. The cowboys would sit around the one
where his father and mother sat--mother with Dulcie in her arms--and
they would smoke and tell stories, until mother told him it was time
little boys were in bed. Buddy always wanted to know what they said
after he had climbed into the big wagon where mother had made a bed,
but he never found out. He could remember lying there listening
sometimes to the niggers singing at their own campfire within call,
Ezra always singing the loudest,--just as a bull always could be heard
above the bellowing of the herd.
All his life, Ezra's singing and the monotonous bellowing of a herd
reminded Buddy of one mysteriously terrible time when there weren't
any rivers or any ponds or anything along the trail, and they had to be
careful of the water and save it, and he and Dulcie were not asked to
wash their faces. I think that miracle helped to fix the incident indelibly
in Buddy's mind; that, and the bellowing of the cattle. It seemed a
month to Buddy, but as he grew older he learned that it was three days
they went without water.
The first day he did not remember especially, except that mother had
talked about clean aprons that night, and failed to produce any. The
second he recalled quite clearly. Father came to the wagons sometime
in the night to see if mother was asleep. Their murmured talk wakened
Buddy and he heard father say:
"We'll hold 'em, all right, Lassie. And there's water ahead. It's marked
on the trail map. Don't you worry--I'll stay up and help the boys. The
cattle are uneasy--but we'll hold 'em."
The third day Buddy never forgot. That was the day when mother

forgot that Q stands for Quagga, and permitted Buddy to call it P, just
for fun, because it looked so much like P. And when he said " W is
water ", mother made a funny sound and said right out loud,"0h God,
please!" and told Buddy to creep back and play with Sister--when
Sister was asleep, and there were still x, y and z to say, let alone that
mysterious And-so-forth which seemed to mean so much and so little
and never was called upon to help spell a word. Never since he began
to have lessons had mother omitted a single letter or cut the study hour
down the teeniest little bit.
Buddy was afraid of something, but he could not think what it was that
frightened him. He began to think seriously about water, and to listen
uneasily to the constant lowing of the herd. The increased shouting of
the niggers driving the lagging ones held a sudden significance. It
occurred to him that the niggers had their hands full, and that they had
never driven so big a "Drag." It was hotter than ever, too, and they had
twice stopped to yoke in fresh oxen. Ezra had boasted all along that ole
Bawley would keep his end up till they got clah to Wyoming. But ole
Bawley had stopped, and stopped, and at last had to be taken out of the
yoke. Buddy began to wish they would hurry up and find a river.
None of the cowboys would take him on the saddle and let him ride,
that day. They looked harassed--Buddy called it cross-- when they rode
up to the wagon to give their horses a few mouthfuls of water from the
barrel. Step-and-a-Half couldn't spare any more, they told mother. He
had declared at noon that he needed every drop he had for the cooking,
and there would be no washing of dishes whatever. Later, mother had
studied a map and afterwards had sat for a long while staring out over
the backs of the cattle, her face white. Buddy thought perhaps mother
was sick.
That day lasted hours and hours longer than any other day that Buddy
could remember. His father looked cross, too, when he rode back to
them. Once it was to look at the map which mother had studied. They
talked together afterwards, and Buddy heard his father say that she
must not worry; the cattle had good bottom, and could stand thirst
better