If we held our ground, they divided around us.

Step by step we were forced to give way--the thin line of nervously plunging horses sprayed before the dense mass of the cattle.
"No, they won't stampede," shouted Charley to my question.

"There's cows and calves in them.

If they was just steers or grown critters, they might." The sensations of those few moments were very vivid--the blinding beat of the storm in my face, the unbroken front of horned heads bearing down on me, resistless as fate, the long slant of rain with the sun shining in the distance beyond it.
Abruptly the downpour ceased.

We shook our hats free of water, and drove the herd back to the cutting grounds again.
But now the surface of the ground was slippery, and the rapid manoeuvring of horses had become a matter precarious in the extreme.
Time and again the ponies fairly sat on their haunches and slid when negotiating a sudden stop, while quick turns meant the rapid scramblings that only a cow-horse could accomplish.