Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1899 — Stopping a Stampede. [ARTICLE]

Stopping a Stampede.

“One of the slickest things I ever saw In my life,” said a veteran army officer the other day, '‘was a cowboy stopping a cattle stampede. A herd of about 600 or 800 had got frightened at something and broke away pellmell with their tails in the air and the bulls at the head of the procession. But Mr. Cowboy didn’t get excited at all when he saw the herd w-as going straight for a high bluff where they would Certainly tumble down into the canyon and be killed. You know that when a herd like that gets to going it can’t stop, no matter whether the cattle rush to death or not. Those in the rear crowd those ahead, and away they go. I wouldn't have given a dollar a head for that hex’d, but the cowboy spuri’ed up his mustang, made a little detour,, came in right in front of the herd, cut across their path at a right angle, and then galloped leisurely on the edge of that bluff, halted and looked around at that wild mass of beef coming right toward him. He was as cool as a cucumber, though I expected to see him killed and was so excited I could not speak. “Well, sir when the leaders had got within about a quarter of a mile of him I saw them try to slack up, though they could not do it very quickly. But the whole herd seemed £o want to stop, and when the cows and steel’s in the rear got about where the cowboy had cut across their path I was sui’prised to see them stop and commence to nibble at the grass. Then the whole herd stopped, wheeled, straggled back and went to fighting for a chance to eat where the rear guard was. “You see, that cowboy had opened a big bag of salt he had brought out from the ranch to give the cattle, galloped across the herd’s course and emptied the bag. Every critter sniffed that line of salt, and, of course, that broke up the stampede. But I tell you it was a queer sight to see that man out there on the edge of that bluff, quietly rolling a cigarette, when it seemed as if he’d be lying under 200 tons of beef in about a minute and a half.”—Chicago Record.