The big herd had gone with the suddenness of a cyclone. It went,
rumbling up the valley, the dust cloud hovering over it, blotting out
its movements. It roared past the Circle L bunkhouses, leaving behind it
a number of Circle L cowboys who had been awakened by the thunderous
noise. The Circle L men had plunged outside in various stages of
undress--all bootless, unprepared, amazed, and profane.
"Stampede!" yelled a hoarse voice.
"Stampede--hell!" shouted another. "It's rustlers! That damn Antrim
bunch!"
This was Shorty. The lithe giant had rushed out of the bunkhouse as the
herd thundered past. He was now running back toward the bunkhouse,
trying to tighten the waistband of his trousers with a belt whose
buckleless end persisted in eluding his grasp.
His words had spurred the other men to frenzied action. There was
confusion in the bunkhouse where men collided with their fellows as they
plunged about for discarded garments, gun-belts, and boots. But soon
they began to straggle out of the door in twos and threes and singly,
racing for the corral and for the lean-to where they kept their saddles.
Foremost among them was Shorty. His tall figure appeared first at the
corral gates, and his long legs were the first astride a horse. While
the others were running hither and yon near the bunkhouse and the
corral, Shorty raced his horse to the ranchhouse, slid off and crossed
the wide porch in two or three leaps.
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