Neither do we have the stampedes that used to wither the grass as the trampling feet of wild-eyed cattle passed. Those were days when "The Phantom Steer" led herds to perdition. To quote from verse written in the running style of the running cattle:

"For at my side with a flaming nose, And eyes that glowed as foxfire glows, With a body of quivering, pulsing mist My rope cut through as it, whirling, hissed. Was a Thing that sped with the speed of deer : I was neck and neck with "The Phantom

Steer;" The Thing that never was known to miss A bottomless bog, or a precipice ; The Thing that leads both herds and men To where they never come back again."

The old familiar and effective way to stop a stampede, was to ride well in the lead, and turn the leaders into an ever narrowing circle, until they were into a slowly revolving wheel with those in the center hardly moving out of their tracks. This contained its perils, for the riding at night is nearly always on strange ground. If a horse should fall it was almost sure death.

Thus the use of the word "mill" or "milling," took on additional meaning. A crowd moving about was "milling around." Dancing the old "round dances" were sometimes called "milling." Occasionally dancers and dancing were referred to as "the night herd is a-running," or "the herd, it got to milling when the fiddle got in tune."

Wyatt ( Long) Heard, of Uvalde county, Texas, drifted through Banner county, on the last roundup. He liked the social early times, but had the fault of getting seriously in earnest with the girls he liked best. Those early girls liked a good time, but none of them cared anything about "a solid fellow."