If you have ever seen a pack of wolves chase down a deer, then you will have some idea how it is that a maverick heifer is brought to justice. I winked my spurs into my half-broke bronc and headed for my station. My position would be somewhere in the area where Bill and his fantastic Paint quarter-horse would be out-gunned by the rat-tailed, half-lame heifer. I would pick up the chase at that point until I was out-gunned by the half-lame, rat-tailed heifer and would then be relieved by a freshly stationed brother named Bill. This activity would commence through seven broken-wire fences, ten creek crossings, and sixteen black bog holes.

What was early on a light-hearted romp in cowboyland, soon becomes a menacing battlefield. Every foul word known to man echoes off the hill-sides as the heifer ducks a lariat loop or disappears into a knot of willows you couldn’t drive a bulldozer through. The rain is pouring, the saddle horses are steaming—the cow is mad, mad, mad.