The wagon stopped so abruptly that
Buddy sprawled helplessly on his back like an overturned
beetle.
He saw mother stand looking down at the wheelers, that backed
and twisted their necks under their yokes. Her lips were set
firmly together, and her eyes were bright with purple hollows
beneath. She held the rifle for a moment, then set the butt
of it on the "jockey box" just in front of the dashboard.
The wheelers, helpless between the weight of the wagon behind
and the dead oxen in front, might twist their necks off but
they could do no damage.
"Unyoke the wheelers, Ezra, and let the poor creatures have
their chance at the water," she cried sharply, and Ezra,
dodging the horns of the frantic brutes, made shift to obey.
Fairly on the bank of the sluggish stream with its flood-worn
channel and its treacherous patches of quicksand, the wagon
thus halted by the sheer nerve and quick-thinking of mother
became a very small island in a troubled sea of weltering
backs and tossing horns and staring eyeballs. Riders shouted
and lashed unavailingly with their quirts, trying to hold
back the full bulk of the herd until the foremost had slaked
their thirst and gone on. But the herd was crazy for the
water, and the foremost were plunged headlong into the soft
mud where they mired, trampled under the hoofs of those who
came crowding from behind.
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