would have been like a cat in a sack. He wanted to draw as far away from the singing cowboy as possible before starting any commotion among the cattle.
Texas was feeling his way through to find, if possible, the place where the cattle were most uneasy. He could sense this spot in the night as well as in the day the moment that he rode into it, for the cattle would be milling like a slow whirlpool. From this trampling swirl of cattle a leader would break away now and then, followed by others, and start off on the aimless run of stampede. This little offthrowing from the revolving wheel of the herd was called a "point" in the tongue of the range, and it was to turn these points back into the herd, and confuse and submerge the leaders, that the cowboys stood alert on the borders of the drove. If Texas could luckily ride into one of these incipient stampedes the cattle could be urged on in spite of the herders' efforts to turn the point.
Over there, where that young-voiced cowboy was singing his long song of the man who left his dear wife and numerous relations to go to the thorny wastes of the Rio Grande and join the Texas Rangers, the sound of the greatest disquietude came. For that spot Texas headed, the rain blowing in his face.
He could not recall ever having ridden in a
