He was not afraid of cattle-they were as much a part of his world as were Ezra and the wagon and the camp-fires-but he trembled with the dread which no man could name for him.
These were not the normal, everyday sounds of the herd.

The herd had somehow changed from plodding animals to one overwhelming purpose that would sweep away anything that came in its path.

Two thousand parched throats and dust-dry tongues-and suddenly the smell of water that would go gurgling down two thousand eager gullets, and every intervening second a cursed delay against which the cattle surged blindly.

It was the mob spirit, when the mob was fighting for its very existence.
Over the bellowing of the cattle a yelling cowboy now and then made himself heard.

The four oxen straining under their yokes broke into a lumbering gallop lest they be outdistanced by the herd, and Dulcie screamed when the wagon lurched across a dry wash and almost upset, while Ezra plied the ox-whip and yelled frantically at first one ox and then another, inventing names for the new ones.