Elder Conklin and Other Stories | Page 9

father had asked him for his help, and she resigned herself, stipulating only that he should come right back from Eureka.
After breakfast the two started. Their way lay along the roll of ground which looked down upon the creek. They rode together in silence, until the Elder asked:
"You ain't a Member, air you?"
"No."
"That's bad. I kinder misdoubted it las' Sunday; but I wasn't sartin. Ef your callin' and election ain't sure, I guess Mr. Crew oughter talk to you."
These phrases were jerked out with long pauses separating them, and then the Elder was ominously silent.
In various ways Bancroft attempted to draw him into conversation--in vain. The Elder answered in monosyllables, or not at all. Presently he entered the woods on the left, and soon halted before the shoot-entrance to a roughly-built corral.
"The kyows is yonder," he remarked; "ef you'll drive them hyar, I'll count them as they come in."
The schoolmaster turned his horse's head in the direction pointed out. He rode for some minutes through the wood without seeing a single animal. Under ordinary circumstances this would have surprised him; but now he was absorbed in thinking of Conklin and his peculiarities, wondering at his habit of silence and its cause:
"Has he nothing to say? Or does he think a great deal without being able to find words to express his thoughts?"
A prolonged moan, a lowing of cattle in pain, came to his ears. He made directly for the sound, and soon saw the herd huddled together by the snake-fence which zigzagged along the bank of the creek. He went on till he came to the boundary fence which ran at right angles to the water, and then turning tried to drive the animals towards the corral. He met, however, with unexpected difficulties. He had brought a stock-whip with him, and used it with some skill, though without result. The bullocks and cows swerved from the lash, but before they had gone ten yards they wheeled and bolted back. At first this manoeuvre amused him. The Elder, he thought, has brought me to do what he couldn't do himself; I'll show him I can drive. But no! in spite of all his efforts, the cattle would not be driven. He grew warm, and set himself to the work. In a quarter of an hour his horse was in a lather, and his whip had flayed one or two of the bullocks, but there they stood again with necks outstretched towards the creek, lowing piteously. He could not understand it. Reluctantly he made up his mind to acquaint the Elder with the inexplicable fact. He had gone some two hundred yards when his tired horse stumbled. Holding him up, Bancroft saw he had tripped over a mound of white dust. A thought struck him. He threw himself off the horse, and tasted the stuff; he was right; it was salt! No wonder he could not drive the cattle; no wonder they lowed as if in pain--the ground had been salted.
He remounted and hastened to the corral. He found the Elder sitting on his horse by the shoot, the bars of which were down.
"I can't move those cattle!"
"You said you knew how to drive."
"I do, but they are mad with thirst; no one can do anything with them. Besides, in this sun they might die on the road."
"Hum."
"Let them drink; they'll go on afterwards."
"Hum." And the Elder remained for some moments silent. Then he said, as if thinking aloud: "It's eight miles to Eureka; they'll be thirsty again before they get to the town."
Bancroft, too, had had his wits at work, and now answered the other's thought. "I guess so; if they're allowed just a mouthful or two they can be driven, and long before they reach Eureka they'll be as thirsty as ever."
Without a word in reply the Elder turned his horse and started off at a lope. In ten minutes the two men had taken down the snake fence for a distance of some fifty yards, and the cattle had rushed through the gap and were drinking greedily.
After they had had a deep draught or two, Bancroft urged his horse into the stream and began to drive them up the bank. They went easily enough now, and ahead of them rode the Elder, his long whitey-brown holland coat fluttering behind him. In half an hour Bancroft had got the herd into the corral. The Elder counted the three hundred and sixty-two beasts with painstaking carefulness as they filed by.
The prairie-track to Eureka led along the creek, and in places ran close to it without any intervening fence. In an hour under that hot October sun the cattle had again become thirsty, and it needed all Bancroft's energy and courage to keep them from dashing into the water. Once or twice