One of those beautiful moonlight nights so common to the southwest, while the cattle were all lying down apparently at ease, they suddenly arose, and after a brief thunder of hoofs, seemed to melt into the moonlight mist, and the night riders had gone with them. When daylight came the trail was followed a short distance after which it became too indistinct to follow. In the night a sudden whirl wind had arisen and shifting sands had obliterated the tracks. The country about was searched closely for many miles, but with barren results.

The returning men to the Texas range were so chagrined that they begged the privilege of taking a smaller bunch, and go over the

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

same trail. Only two of these men returned, and their story ended trailing cattle through that particular section of the south for a great many years.

They had crossed the Kansas line as usual, and the night was one of those typical stampeding nights. The utmost vigilence had been observed. The night herd had been doubled, and they were to move about the dozing cattle, and to keep up whistling or singing the soothing tones that only night-herders know will tend to keep the cattle from taking alarm.

As John A Lomax says in his book : "The Songs of The Cowboy."

"What keeps the herds from running, Stampeding far and wide? The cowboy's long, low whistle And singing by their side."

Suddenly, like one, the entire herd arose, and the silence of the night was changed to a pandemonium of sound. The earth trembled with the beating of hoofs, the cowboy's tranquil call rose to a shrill crescendo, shouts and shots woke the startled prairie owls, and all was feverish anxiety. The two men who returned to Texas were at the camp, when the tornado of activity awoke.