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The line-backed dun hesitated in its stride and stopped Benteen was inals of his brush-wise mount The dun’s nose and pricked ears pointed toward a solid wall of erly beneath hied roan cow, and the twisted horns of a second The animals remained motionless, hunkered down in the brush, until they were certain they’d been seen

Beside hi sound that crossed a Comanche hoop with a rebel yell With the nerves released, both riders spurred their horses at the hidden Longhorns Nature bred the Longhorns with the agility of a deer, enabling them to bound to their feet in one leap and be in a dead run by the next

There didn’t seeo, a horse could follow It was up to the riders to stay on board the best way they kne

Benteen took after the roan cohile Shorty split away after the second Longhorn They hit the brush at a run and tore a hole through it—a hole that seeh Branches popped and snapped; thorny lis and tore at his clothes To avoid being scraped off his horse, Benteen was all over the saddle, dodging and ducking, flattening hi the opposite side He used his ars, his hands, his shoulders, his whole body, to shield his head froe out his eyes Benteen didn’t dare close them or he’d lose control and not see the next limb Like the tawny horse he rode, Benteen was oblivious of everything but the curved horns of the roan cow racing through the brush ahead of them

It was a brutal, hair-raising race to catch up with the red roan In this dense growth, there wasn’t roo closed in on the wild cow, Benteen waited until he had a s in the brush the size of a saddle blanket With a short rope, he reached over and cast his loop up to circle the cow’s head, taking advantage of the sparse plant growth close to the ground

The dun horse bunched and gathered itself to absorb the yank when the cow hit the end of the rope When the loop tightened around its neck to pull it up short, it let out a bellow of fear and anger Plunging and fighting at the restraint, the roan cow hooked its horn at the rope, but didn’t charge the rider, as some of her breed did

After an initially lengthy struggle, the cow turned out to be one of the ly obeyed the pull of the rope, per Benteen to lead her from the thicket Sometimes the wild cattle had to be left tied to a tree for a few days until they were tender-headed enough to lead In extreme cases, the eyelids of outlaw cattle were sewed shut so they would blindly follow another animal to avoid t

reacherous branches

With the reluctant cow in tow, Benteen turned the dun gelding in the direction of the main camp, where they penned their catch He didn’t wait for Shorty The young coas on his own It wasn’t uncoht fell, in which case they bedded doherever they happened to be

Shorty caught up with hih, about a mile before Benteen reached camp Both horse and rider bore the ht wither of the bay horse where a horn had slashed through its hide Like Benteen’s s were scratched and studded with dislodged thorns Shorty was sporting a long cut on his cheek, the blood fro to dry and cake

“I had to leavewidely “I’ll go get her in a couple of days”

Benteen nodded and glanced at the broken pieces of branches sticking out of the fork of Shorty’s saddle “You’ve got enough wood there to start a small fire”

“Reckon I do” Shorty laughed and began pulling it out

By the ti over the brushland Jessie Tru Steaks fro in a skillet The coffee had already boiled, and the pot was sitting near the war in theiron in the fire

In front of a s of the ani out the tail, they put the cow on the ground, flankside-up The glowing iron was curved in the shape of a C Jessie stah the hair into the hide just deep enough to leave a permanent scar that read Triple C