There would be nothing left to feed Pete and Bright and Spot in the winter-time.
Jack knew what to do. He ran growling down the steps to the footbridge. Pa was not there to save the hay-stacks; they must drive those cattle away.
“Oh, we can’t! We can’t!” Mary said, scared. But Laura ran behind Jack and Mary came after her. They went over the creek and past the spring. They came up on the prairie and now they saw the fierce, big cattle quite near. The long horns were gouging, the thick legs trampling and jostling, the wide mouths bawling.
Mary was too scared to move. Laura was too scared to stand still. She jerked Mary along. She saw a stick, and grabbed it up and ran yelling at the cattle. Jack ran at them, growling. A big red cow swiped at him with her horns, but he jumped behind her. She snorted and galloped. All the other cattle ran humping and jostling after her, and Jack and Laura and Mary ran after them.
But they could not chase those cattle away from the hay-stacks. The cattle ran around and around and in between the stacks, jostling and bawling, tearing off hay and trampling it. More and more hay slid off the stacks. Laura ran panting and yelling, waving her stick. The faster she ran, the faster the cattle went, black and brown and red, brindle and spotted cattle, big and with awful horns, and they would not stop wasting the hay. Some tried to climb over the toppling stacks.
Laura was hot and dizzy. Her hair unbraided and blew in her eyes. Her throat was rough from yelling, but she kept on yelling, running, and waving her stick. She was too scared to hit one of those big, horned cows. More and more hay kept coming down and faster and faster they trampled over it.
Suddenly Laura turned around and ran the other way. She faced the big red cow coming around a hay-stack.
The huge legs and shoulders and terrible horns were coming fast. Laura could not scream now. But she jumped at that cow and waved her stick. The cow tried to stop, but all the other cattle were coming behind her and she couldn’t. She swerved and ran away across the plowed ground, all the others galloping after her.
Jack and Laura and Mary chased them, farther and farther from the hay. Far into the high prairie grasses they chased those cattle. Johnny Johnson rose out of the prairie, rubbing his eyes. He had been lying asleep in a warm hollow of grass.
“Johnny! Johnny!” Laura screeched. “Wake up and watch the cattle!”
“You’d better!” Mary told him.
Johnny Johnson looked at the cattle grazing in the deep grass, and he looked at Laura and Mary and Jack. He did not know what had happened and they could not tell him because the only words he knew were Norwegian.
They went back through the high grass that dragged at their trembling legs. They were glad to drink at the spring. They were glad to be in the quiet dugout and sit down to rest.
Chapter 11
Runaway
All that long, quiet afternoon they stayed in the dugout. The cattle did not come back to the hay-stacks. Slowly the sun went down the western sky. Soon it would be time to meet the cattle at the big gray rock, and Laura and Mary wished that Pa and Ma would come home.
Again and again they went up the path to look for the wagon. At last they sat waiting with Jack on the grassy top of their house. The lower the sun went, the more attentive Jack’s ears were. Often he and Laura stood up to look at the edge of the sky where the wagon had gone, though they could see it just as well when they were sitting down.
Finally Jack turned one ear that way, then the other. Then he looked up at Laura and a waggle went from his neck to his stubby tail. The wagon was coming!
They all stood and watched till it came out of the prairie. When Laura saw the oxen, and Ma and Carrie on the wagon seat, she jumped up and down, swinging her sunbonnet and shouting, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
“They’re coming awful fast,” Mary said.
Laura was still. She heard the wagon rattling loudly. Pete and Bright were coming very fast. They were running. They were running away.
The wagon came bumpity-banging and bouncing. Laura saw Ma down in a corner of the wagon box, hanging on to it and hugging Carrie. Pa came bounding in long jumps beside Bright, shouting and hitting at Bright with the goad.
He was trying to turn Bright back from the creek bank.
He could not do it. The big oxen galloped nearer and nearer the steep edge. Bright was pushing Pa off it. They were all going over. The wagon, Ma, and Carrie, were going to fall down the bank, all the way down to the creek.
Pa shouted a terrible shout. He struck Bright’s head with all his might, and Bright swerved. Laura ran screaming. Jack jumped at Bright’s nose. Then the wagon, Ma, and Carrie flashed by. Bright crashed against the stable and suddenly everything was still.
Pa ran after the wagon and Laura ran behind him.
“Whoa, Bright! Whoa, Pete,” Pa said. He held on to the wagon box and looked at Ma.
“We’re all right, Charles,” Ma said. Her face was gray and she was shaking all over.
Pete was trying to go on through the doorway into the stable, but he was yoked to Bright and Bright was headed against the stable wall. Pa lifted Ma and Carrie out of the wagon, and Ma said, “Don’t cry, Carrie. See, we’re all right.”
Carrie’s pink dress was torn down the front. She snuffled against Ma’s neck and t