The sun was getting low, but the temperature showed no signs of falling, and the men were soon soaked in perspiration.

The herd went on at a good pace, making for a wavy line of timber, and on reaching it, plunged down the side of a declivity among little scattered trees.

A stream trickled through willow bushes and tall grass in the bottom of the hollow, and the men.
had trouble in forcing the cattle to leave the water.

Before they accomplished it, Edgar had got very wet and had scratched himself badly in scrambling through the brush.
"Driving stock is by no means so easy as it looks," he grumbled, when they had climbed the opposite ascent, leading their horses.

"The way these beasts jump about among the bushes confuses you; I'd have sworn there were forty of them in the ravine." "I see only nine now," George said pointedly.
Edgar looked back into the hollow.
"There are three of the brutes slipping away upstream as fast as they can go! You're smarter at the thing than I am--hadn't you better go after them ?" "I expect I'll be needed to keep this bunch together," George rejoined.
Edgar strode away, but it was half an hour later when he came back, hot and angry, with the cattle crashing through the brush in front of him.
Then the reunited herd set off at a smart pace across the plain.
"They seem fond of an evening gallop," Edgar remarked.