📔 Riders of the Purple Sage

"I never seen their like," was Lassiter's encomium, "an' in my day I've seen a sight of horses."

He paused a moment and flicked a sage-brush with his quirt.

Then, like a stream of white bees pouring from a huge swarm, the steers stretched out from the main body. In a few moments, with astonishing rapidity, the whole herd got into motion. […] "It's a stampede, an' a hummer," said Lassiter. […] ["]That stampede will pass within a mile of us."

Cattle are usually quiet after dark. Still I've known even a coyote to stampede your white herd.

Miss Withersteen, let me get what boys I can gather, an' hold the white herd. It's on the slope now, not ten miles out—three thousand head, an' all steers. They're wild, an' likely to stampede at the pop of a jack-rabbit's ears.