This obstruction soon caused the main body to swerve. Their solid front had been broken at last, yet they continued on as wildly as before, bellowing and horning one another in their mad flight.

The rain, which had held back during the brilliant electrical display, now came down in drenching torrents, packing down the sand of the plain which the wind, before, had picked up and tossed into the air in dense clouds.

Tad was soaked to the skin almost instantly. But he did not mind this.

His thought, now, was to get out of his perilous position and follow the herd.

The cattle that had fallen so near him, were now one by one extricating themselves from their predicament, each one giving vent to a bellow as it did so and dashing after its companions.

The lad was not slow to crawl from his hiding place the moment he considered it safe to do so. As it was, he got away before the snarl of steers had entirely unraveled itself.

What to do Tad did not know. His pony gone, and, with no sense of direction left, he was in sore straits.

"I'll follow the cattle," he decided. "Besides, it's my business to stay with them if I can. I'll do it as long as I've got a leg to stand on,"

he declared, cautiously working around those of the cattle that were leaping from the heap and running away.

The mesquite was still full of stragglers dashing wildly here and there.

In the darkness, the boy was really in great danger. There were no large trees behind which he could dodge to get out of the way of the animals as they rushed toward him, nor was he able to see them when they did get near him. He was obliged to judge of their direction by sound alone.

This was made doubly difficult since the rain had begun to fall, for now, young Butler could scarcely distinguish one sound from another.

Once a plunging steer hit the lad a glancing blow with its great side, hurling him into a thicket of bristling mesquite. The thorns gashed his face and body, almost stripping the remnants of his tattered clothes from him.

Still, with indomitable pluck, the lad sprang to his feet, stubbornly working his way through the thicket.

He came out finally on the other side and floundering about for a time, found himself once more on a plain, which he had observed in the light from a flash of lightning extended away indefinitely. Off to the west, he plainly made out a large body of cattle. Apparently they were now headed to the northwest.

It was almost a hopeless task for one to expect to be able to overhaul them on foot, and even were he to do so he could accomplish nothing after reaching them.

But Tad kept on just the same, with the rain beating him until he was gasping for breath, the lightning playing about him in lingering sheets of yellow flame.

He had run on in this way for fully half an hour when a flash disclosed an object to the right of him. It was moving, but Tad was sure it was not a steer.

The boy changed his course somewhat and trotted along with more caution, shading his eyes with a hand that he might make out what it was when the next flash came.

"It's a pony!" he shouted. "It's my pony!"

The animal was standing with lowered head, gazing straight at the boy.

Tad whistled and called with a long drawn "Whoa-oo-ope!"

The pony made no move to approach, nor did it attempt to run away. But Tad had had experience enough with the cow ponies by this time to know that the animal was not likely to stand still and permit him to come up with it. At any moment it was likely to kick its heels in the air and dash away.

"I've got to make a run for him," decided the lad, stepping cautiously forward, making a slight detour that he might come up from the animal's left instead of approaching him directly from the front.

After having done this, Tad waited, crouching low. He chuckled to himself as he observed that the pony was looking straight ahead, not having discovered his master's new position.

The boy was not more than two rods from him.

Measuring the distance with his eyes, he waited until the lightning flash died out, then ran on his toes straight for where he believed the horse was standing. It was Tad's purpose to grab the animal about the neck.

Instead he ran straight against the pony's side with a resounding b.u.mp.

The pony uttered a grunt of fear, springing straight up into the air.

"Whoa, Barney!" coaxed the lad. But Barney had no idea of obeying the command at that moment. It is doubtful if, in the fright of the sudden collision, he even understood what was wanted of him.

Tad's hands had missed the neck. Instead they had grasped the pommel and cantle of the saddle, so that when the pony leaped, Tad's feet were jerked clear of the ground.

As the animal came down on all fours, Tad threw himself into the saddle.

Instantly the pony's back arched, and, with a cough, it went off into a series of bucks, twisting, whirling and making desperate efforts to unseat its rider.

For the first few minutes the lad could do no more than hold on. At the first opportunity, however, he let go of the pommel long enough to reach forward and pick up the reins, which hung well down on the pony's neck.

"Now, buck, Barney, you rascal!" shouted Tad gleefully, giving a gentle pressure with the spurs.

Barney at once decided to stop bucking.

Tad clucked to him and shook out the reins.

Away they went on the trail of the cattle, heading to the northwest, where the lad could plainly see them running.

At the pace the pony was going they were able to overhaul the herd in a short time. Tad had clung to his quirt when he was thrown. Reaching the head of the line of charging beasts, he rode straight at the leaders, bringing the quirt again and again across the noses of those nearest to him. This treatment served to deflect the line a little; yet, try as he would, Tad seemed unable to turn the bunch toward home. Yet he kept steadily at his work, "milling" the steers, as the turning process is called, until pony and rider were well-nigh exhausted.

Tad knew he was a long way from camp and alone with the herd. After a time the animals seemed to him to be slackening their speed. Discovering this, he untied the slicker or rubber blanket from the saddle cantle, and, riding against the leaders again, flaunted the slicker in their faces, shouting and urging at the same time.

"If I had a gun I believe I could stop them right away," he said. "But I'm going to turn them if it's the last thing I ever do."

The fury of the storm was abating and the lightning flashes were becoming less frequent.

Now that he had succeeded in turning the point of the herd, it proved much easier to keep them under control. Besides, it gave both boy and pony a breathing spell. The hard riding was not now necessary.

Round and round young Butler kept the herd circling for nearly an hour.

The steers, moving more and more slowly, Tad concluded wisely that they were growing tired of this and that they would quiet down. His judgment proved correct. The storm pa.s.sed. He could hear it roaring off to the northwest where the lightning flamed up in intermittent flashes.

"Wonder what time it is," queried Tad aloud, searching about in his clothes for his watch.

"Pshaw, I've lost it," he exclaimed. "Well, it is not so much of a loss after all. I paid only a dollar for it and I've had more than a dollar's worth of fun to-night. I wonder what I look like. I must be a sight."

It now lacked only an hour of dawn, but, of course, the boy did not know this. In the darkness preceding the dawn he had no idea of the size of the bunch of cattle that he had led out over the plain. He knew it must be large, however.

At last daybreak was at hand, the landscape and the herd being faintly outlined in the thin morning light. Tad was surprised to find that he had milled the cattle into a compact bunch. Now the boy began galloping around the herd, speaking words of encouragement to the animals as he went, whistling and trying to sing, until finally he was rewarded by seeing some of them begin to graze.

"I've done it," shouted Tad gleefully. "I've bagged the whole bunch. I wonder what Mr. Stallings will say to that. I don't believe Big-foot Sanders could beat that. The next question is, where am I? I don't know.

I guess I'm lost for sure. But I've got lots of company."

To add to his perplexity, a light fog was drifting over the plain from the southeast, shutting out what little view there was in the early morning light.

The cattle were now grazing as contentedly as if they never had known such an experience as a stampede. It was useless, however, to attempt to drive them, for he might be leading them away from camp instead of toward it.