Cow-Country | Page 9

than a poor herd, and another dry camp would not really hurt
anyone.
He had uncovered the water barrel and looked in, and had ridden
straight over to the chuck-wagon, his horse walking alongside the high

seat where Step-and-a-Half sat perched listlessly with a long-lashed
oxwhip in his hand. Father had talked for a few minutes, and had
ridden back scowling.
"That old scoundrel has got two ten-gallon kegs that haven't been
touched!" he told mother. "Yo' all mustn't water any more horses out of
your barrel Send the boys to Step-and-a- Half. Yo' all keep what you've
got. The horses have got to have water- to-night it's going to be hell to
hold the herd, and if anybody goes thirsty it'll be the men, not the
horses But yo' all send them to the other wagon, Lassie Mind, now! Not
a drop to anyone."
After father rode away, Buddy crept up and put his two short arms
around mother. "Don't cry. I don't have to drink any water," he soothed
her. He waited a minute and added optimistically, "Dere's a BI--IG
wiver comin' pitty soon. Oxes smells water a hunerd miles. Ezra says
so. An' las' night Crumpy was snuffin' an' snuffin'. I saw 'im do it. He
smelt a BIG wiver. THAT bi-ig!" He spread his short arms as wide
apart as they would reach, and smiled tremulously.
Mother squeezed Buddy so hard that he grunted.
"Dear little man, of course there is. WE don't mind, do we? I-was
feeling sorry for the poor cattle."
"De're firsty," Buddy stated solemnly, his eyes big. "De're bawlin' fer a
drink of water. I guess de're AWFUL firsty. Dere's a big wiver comin'
now Crumpy smelt a big wiver."
Buddy's mother stared across the arid plain parched into greater
barrenness by the heat that had been unremitting for the past week.
Buddy's faith in the big river she could not share. Somehow they had
drifted off the trail marked on the map drawn by George Williams.
Williams had warned them to carry as much water as possible in barrels,
as a precaution against suffering if they failed to strike water each night.
He had told them that water was scarce, but that his cowboy scouts and
the deep-worn buffalo trails had been able to bring him through with
water at every camp save two or three. The Staked Plains, he said,
would be the hardest drive. And this was the Staked Plains--and it was
hard driving!
Buddy did not know all that until afterwards, when he heard father talk
of the drive north. But he would have remembered that day and the
night that followed, even though he had never heard a word about it.

The bawling of the herd became a doleful chant of misery. Even the
phlegmatic oxen that drew the wagons bawled and slavered while they
strained forward, twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They
stopped oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted to
walk with the perspiring Ezra by the leaders, he wondered why the
oxen's eyes were red, like Dulcie's when she had one of her crying
spells.
At night the cowboys did not tie their horses and sit down while they
ate, but stood by their mounts and bolted food hurriedly, one eye
always on the restless cattle, that walked around and around, and would
neither eat nor lie down, but lowed incessantly. Once a few animals
came close enough to smell the water in a bucket where Frank Davis
was watering his sweat-streaked horse, and Step-and-a-Half's wagon
was almost upset before the maddened cattle could be driven back to
the main herd.
"No use camping," Bob Birnie told the boys gathered around
Step-and-a-Half's Dutch ovens. "The cattle won't stand. We'll wear
ourselves and them out trying to hold 'em-they may as well be hunting
water as running in circles. Step-and-a-Half, keep your cooked grub
handy for the boys, and yo' all pack up and pull out. We'll turn the
cattle loose and follow. If there's any water in this damned country
they'll find it."
Years afterwards, Buddy learned that his father had sent men out to
hunt water, and that they had not found any. He was ten when this was
discussed around a spring roundup fire, and he had studied the matter
for a few minutes and then had spoken boldly his mind.
"You oughta kept your horses as thirsty as the cattle was, and I bet
they'd a' found that water," he criticized, and was sent to bed for his
tactlessness. Bob Birnie himself had thought of that afterwards, and had
excused the oversight by saying that he had depended on the map, and
had not foreseen a three-day dry drive.
However that may be, that night was a night