Adventures in Many Lands, page 50 by Various Authors
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desire to come too! She was a fine horsewoman, and fearless, and she loved excitement of this sort. Tom promised to take care of her, so she was permitted to join our party. Lucky Tom!
As the little clock on the settler's mantelpiece struck twelve, we saddled our horses and set off for the corn-brake. I was keen on seeing how these fellows were going to capture the wild cattle, but I was too inexperienced to take a very active part at the time.
The corn-patch was right in the hollow of the valley, on a flat on the eastern bank of the dry bed of the river. We rode down together--never a word being spoken on the way--to where a group of oak-trees raised their stately heads, and there we held our final council of war. Bain, anxious to give a tenderfoot a chance of seeing as much of the proceedings as possible, directed me to get off my horse and climb the bank, from which I should obtain a view of the field and of the cattle as they were feeding. I was very quiet, for the beasts have ears rather sharper than anything. Tom had given me his directions in a whisper.
So I climbed the bank and looked over the cornfield, and there in the centre I could see a small black mass of moving things, about three hundred yards away. I went quietly back to the river-bed, and found that most of the fellows had dismounted and were "cinching" up their saddles.
A moment later I was told off with a vaquero (cowboy) to ride up the bed of a creek that ran at right-angles to the river and parallel with the cornfield. We were to try to "head" the cattle, and so prevent them from breaking out of the field, up the hillside, and getting away into the mountains again, where we should have had to leave them.
The creek-bed was low, and afforded us good cover for three parts of the way. Then it shallowed, and we soon were able to see, from our horses, the cattle in the corn. We thought we had been very quiet indeed, but we noticed a hurried movement among the beasts, and with a cry "They're off!" my companion du