A Council of War
bossed by her, and no matter how quickly they swerved she was always at the right place at the right time and kept them going as her master wished. She neither hurried them too fast nor pressed them too closely, for she knew that when a range cow is pushed too hard it is likely to go "on the prod" and change instantly from an easy-going, docile victim to a stubborn, vicious quadruped with no sense whatever and a strong yearning to use its horns.
It did not take long to get six cows to the edge of the Deepwater; but it took two hours of careful but hard riding, perseverance and profuse profanity to get them into the water. It was no one-man job, and with a horse that had less training than Pepper it might have proved to be an impossibility; but at last one cow preferred the water to being made a fool of, and when it went in the others reluctantly followed. Scrambling out on the farther bank they doubtless were congratulating themselves upon having escaped a pest, when the pest itself emerged behind them and drove them slowly but steadily toward Little Canyon. In it they went, and up it; and as they paused on the main trail to determine which way to go, the pest arrived and decided the question for them, drove them across it and into a small valley; and as day broke, six unhurried, placid cows wandered slowly into the crooked canyon and through the opening in the fence.
75
