Soon everyone has turned in for the night.

A couple of hours later the first guard come in, their spell being over, and the second relief takes their place.
The cattle are quiet; not a sound breaks the silence except the low crooning of some of the boys on duty.

But suddenly, what is that noise ?--like the distant rumbling of guns on the march, or of a heavy train crossing a wooden bridge! To one with his head on the ground the earth seems almost to tremble.

Oh, we know it well! It is the beating of 8000 hoofs on the hard ground.

The cowboy recognizes the dreaded sound instantly: it wakens him quicker than anything else.