Chapter 7

Joe dropped to a seat on the log beside Roy. “Did you enjoy your first night shift?”

“Once I got over the idea that they were going to stampede any minute, it was all right. I was about to run out of songs, though.”

“They don’t care. Some of the hands just know one or two songs by heart. So long as you’re making somesort of soothing noise, the beeves’ll be happy.”

“Have you ever been in a stampede?” Roy wasn’t certain he wanted to know, but he couldn’t help asking.

“Once. Thunderstorm spooked them. Thankfully nobody was killed. It just took us an extra week to roundup the herd again.”

Roy swallowed hard. “A thunderstorm? That sounds like they really will stampede over nothing.”

“You’ll have some warning,” Joe said. “It’s easy to tell when you’ve got a nervous herd. If you’re out there at night and none of them are settling down—it ‘s pretty obvious.”

“Now I’m nervous myself.”