but every time we freed a steer we had to drive the wagon well out of reach, for fear he might charge the wagon and team.  But with three crews working in the water, tying up tails and legs, the work progressed more rapidly than it had done the day before, and two hours before sunset the last animal had been freed.  We had several exciting incidents during the operation, for several steers showed fight, and when released went on the prod for the first thing in sight.  The herd was grazing nearly a mile away during the afternoon, and as fast as a steer was pulled out, some one would take a horse and give the freed animal a start for the herd.  One big black steer turned on Flood, who generally attended to this, and gave him a spirited chase.  In getting out of the angry steer’s way, he passed near the wagon, when the maddened beef turned from Flood and charged the commissary.  McCann was riding the nigh wheel mule, and when he saw the steer coming, he poured the whip into the mules and circled around like a battery in field practice, trying to get out of the way.  Flood made several attempts to cut off the steer from the wagon, but he followed it like a mover’s dog, until a number of us, fearing our mules would be gored, ran out of the water, mounted our horses, and joined in the chase.  When we came up with the circus, our foreman called to us to rope the beef, and Fox Quarternight, getting in the first cast, caught him by the two front feet and threw him heavily.  Before he could rise, several of us had dismounted and were sitting on him like buzzards on carrion.  McCann then drove the team around behind a sand dune, out of sight; we released the beef, and he was glad to return to the herd, quite sobered by the throwing.

Another incident occurred near the middle of the afternoon.  From some cause or other, the hind leg of a steer, after having been tied up, became loosened.  No one noticed this; but when, after several successive trials, during which Barney McCann exhausted a large vocabulary of profanity, the mule team was unable to move the steer, six of us fastened our lariats to the main rope, and dragged the beef ashore with great eclat.  But when one of the boys dismounted to unloose the hobbles and rope, a sight met our eyes that sent a sickening sensation through us, for the steer had left one hind leg in the river, neatly disjointed at the knee.  Then we knew why the mules had failed to move him, having previously supposed his size was the difficulty, for he was one of the largest steers in the herd.  No doubt the steer’s leg had been unjointed in swinging him around, but it had taken six extra horses to sever the ligaments and skin, while the merciless quicksands of the Canadian held the limb.  A friendly shot ended the steer’s sufferings, and before we finished our work for the day, a flight of buzzards were circling around in anticipation of the coming feast.