"I'd like to see you ride a horse when he's upside down!" "Aw, come on," urged Bob, giving up the argument.

"We'll be plumb lost from the herd if we don't hustle." They got into their saddles again and went on, riding by sound and the rare glimpses the lightning gave them as it flared through the storm away to the east.
"Wet ?" Bob sung out sympathetically from the streaming shelter of his slicker.

Thurston, wriggling away from his soaked clothing, grunted a sarcastic negative.
The cattle were drifting now before the storm which had settled to a monotonous downpour.

The riders--two or three men for every herd that had joined in the panic--circled, a veritable picket line without the password.

There would be no relief ride out to them that night, and they knew it and settled to the long wait for morning.
Thurston took up his station next to Bob; rode until he met the next man, and then retraced his steps till he faced Bob again; rode until the world seemed unreal and far away, with nothing left but the night and the riding back and forth on his beat, and the rain that oozed through his clothes and trickled uncomfortably down inside his collar.