It was hailing so thickly that when they did reach the river Mouse jumped off a six-foot bank, throwing Newt. Again, he managed to hang onto his reins, but he was naked, and hailstones were pounding all around him. When he stood up he happened to notice that Mouse made a kind of wall. By crouching close under him Newt avoided most of the hailstones—Mouse absorbed them. Mouse wasn’t happy about it, but since he had taken it upon himself to jump off the bank, Newt didn’t feel very sorry for him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Not enough buffalo,” Augustus said. “It wasn’t two years ago that they had that big fight here, and now look at it. It looks like it’s been empty fifty years.” The only signs of life were the rattlesnakes, of which there were plenty, and mice, which explained the snakes. A few owls competed with the snakes for the mice.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Dern, it better not rain no week,” Jasper said. “Them rivers will be like oceans.” That night they all herded, not because the cattle were particularly restless but because it was drier on a horse than on the sopping ground. Newt began to think it had been a mistake to leave Lonesome Dove if it was going to be so wet. He remembered how dry and clear the days had been there. He and Mouse stumbled through the night somehow, though before morning he was so tired he had lost all interest in living.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It rained so hard for two hours that it was difficult even to see the cattle. Newt moped along on Mouse, feeling chilled and depressed. By this time, they were on a rolling plain bare of trees. There was nothing to get under except the sky.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“What’d he do, jump over a bush and throw you?” Pea asked. “I was always skittish about them small horses—they can get out from under you too quick.” “He’ll play hell doing it again,” Newt said, feeling very angry at Mouse. He ordinarily wouldn’t have spoken so strongly in the presence of Pea, or any adult, but his feelings were ragged. Somehow Pea’s explanation of what had happened made more sense than the truths—so much so that Newt began to half believe it himself. Being thrown was not particularly admirable, but it happened to all cowboys sooner or later, and it was a lot easier to admit to than what had actually occurred.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

But Mouse didn’t walk up. Newt heard a few shots, quite a ways to the north—just the boys, firing to turn the herd. Then the drumming got fainter and finally stopped. Newt knew the run was over. He sat where he was, wondering why, of all people, he had to be so unlucky. Then he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He must have slept most of the night over by Lorena’s camp.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Newt finally got his breath back and stopped crying, but he didn’t get up because there was no reason to. He felt a terrible anger at Mouse for having run off and put him in such a position. If Mouse had suddenly walked up, Newt felt he would cheerfully have shot him.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Before he could stop himself, Newt began to cry. He had lost the Mouse, an unforgivable thing, and all because he thought he had conceived a good plan for watching Lorena. He hated to think what the Captain would say when he had to confess. He ran one way and then the other for a while, thinking there might be two identical boulders—that the horse might still be there. But it wasn’t true. The horse was just gone. He sat down under the tree where Mouse should have been, sure that he was ruined as a cowboy unless a miracle happened. He didn’t think one would.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Finally he had to slow down. His legs refused to keep up the speed and he trotted the last two hundred yards to where he had tied Mouse. But the horse wasn’t there! Newt looked around to be sure he had the right place. He had used a boulder as a landmark, and the boulder was where it should be—but not the horse. Newt knew the stampede might have scared him and caused him to break the rein, but there was no broken rein hanging from the tree where Mouse had been tied.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Newt ran as hard as he could, not because he was afraid of being trampled but because he had to get Mouse and try to be some help. He kept running until he was covered with sweat and could barely get breath into his lungs. He was hoping none of the cowboys saw him afoot. He held onto the gun as he ran.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Somehow the daydream had become a night dream, and the night dream was ending. He woke up very frightened, though at first he didn’t know why he was frightened. He just knew that something was wrong. He still sat under the tree, the gun in his hand, only there was a sound that was wrong, a sound like drumming. For a second it confused him—then he realized what it was: the cattle were running. Instantly he was running too, running for Mouse. He wasn’t sure how close the cattle were or whether they were running in his direction, but he didn’t stop to listen. He knew he had to get to Mouse and then ride back to Lorena, to help her in case the cattle swerved her way. He began to hear men yelling to the west, obviously the boys trying to turn the cattle. Then suddenly a bunch of running cattle appeared right in front of him, fifty or sixty of them. They ran right past him and on toward the bluffs.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

But it was such a beautiful, peaceful night, the moon new and high, that Newt decided to chance it. Lorena might already be asleep, it was so peaceful. On such a night it would be little risk to tie Mouse for a few hours. He looped his rein over a tree limb and went walking back toward Lorena’s. He stopped at a little stand of live oak about a hundred yards from the camp, sat down with his back against a tree and drew his pistol. Just holding it made him feel ready for anything.Resting with his back against the tree, Newt let himself drift back into the old familiar daydreams in which he got better and better as a cowboy until even the Captain had to recognize that he was a top hand. His prowess was not lost on Lorena, either. He didn’t exactly dream that they got married, but she did ask him to get off his horse and talk for a while.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He trotted what he judged to be about a half a mile from Lorena’s camp before stopping and dismounting. His new plan for watching Lorena involved leaving Mouse—if he tried to sneak back on Mouse, Lorena’s mare might nicker. He would have to tie Mouse and sneak back on foot, a violation of a major rule of cowboying. You were never supposed to be separated from your horse. The rule probably had to do with Indian fighting, Newt supposed: you would obviously be done for if the Indians caught you on foot.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Newt’s spirits fell. It was just what he had feared she would say. He had been ordered to come and look after her, and he couldn’t just blithely disobey an order. But neither did he want to disobey Lorena. He sat where he was, on Mouse, in the grip of terrible indecision. He almost wished something would happen—a sudden attack of Mexicans or something. He might be killed, but at least he wouldn’t have to make a choice between disobeying Mr. Gus and disobeying Lorena.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

He slowed Mouse to a walk in hope of thinking up something to say before he had to speak, but for some reason his mind wouldn’t work. He also found that he couldn’t breathe easily.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

It was a great relief to him when Mouse nickered and Lorena’s horse nickered back. At least that disgrace had been avoided. He loped on to the little camp, and at first couldn’t see Lorena at all, just the horse and the mule. Then he finally saw her sitting with her back against a tree.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Seen a few turtles, that’s all,” Deets said. “If they’re there, they’re hid.” “I hope they ain’t there,” Augustus said. “If a mouse snake was to show itself now, half these waddies would climb a tree.” “I’m more worried about Indians,” Pea Eye said.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Newt held his reins, still crying, and let Mouse do the work. He remembered Sean’s screams, and how much the snakes had looked like giant wiggly worms. When at last the cattle were started back toward the main herd the Captain put his horse back into the river, which startled Newt. He didn’t see how anybody could just ride back into a river that could suddenly be filled with snakes, but this time no snakes appeared. Newt saw that Mr. Gus and Deets had not moved, and wondered if Sean was dead yet. He kept feeling he ought to leave the cattle and go talk to Sean, even if it was too late for Sean to answer, but he was afraid to. He didn’t know what to do, and he sat on his horse and cried until he started vomiting. He had to lean over and vomit beneath his horse’s neck.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

They both had coiled ropes in their hands as they raced their horses back into the water—Newt wondered what they meant to do with the ropes. Then his eyes found Sean, who was screaming again and again, in a way that made Newt want to cover his ears. He saw that Sean was barely clinging to his horse, and that a lot of brown things were wiggling around him and over him. At first, with the screaming going on, Newt couldn’t figure out what the brown things were—they seemed like giant worms. His mind took a moment to work out what his eyes were seeing. The giant worms were snakes—water moccasins. Even as the realization struck him, Mr. Gus and Deets went into the river behind Pea Eye and the Captain. How they all got there so fast he couldn’t say, for the screams had started just as Mouse and the steer reached the top of the bank, so close that Newt could see the droplets of water on the steer’s horns.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Despite the smoothness, Newt felt a good deal afraid and shut his eyes for a second when his horse went to swimming depth and the water came over the saddle. But he got no wetter, and he opened his eyes to see that he was almost across the river. He struck the far bank almost at the same time as a skinny brown longhorn; Mouse and the steer struggled up the bank side by side.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

“Good horse,” he said. “If we just keep going maybe it’ll get light.” Mouse swung his head to get his wet forelock out of his eyes, and kept on plodding through the mud.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

All the same, he felt proud of Mouse, for many horses would have fallen, sliding into a gully.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Then Mouse began to move again and Newt heard the splashing of a horse ahead. He didn’t know if it carried a friendly rider, but Mouse seemed to think so, for he was trotting through the hock-high water, trying to locate the other horse. In one of the weakening flashes of lightning Newt saw cattle trotting along, fifty yards to his right. Suddenly, with no warning, Mouse began to slide. His back feet almost went out from under him—they had struck a gully, and Newt felt water rising up his legs. Fortunately it wasn’t a deep gully; Mouse regained his balance and struggled through it, as scared as Newt.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇

Almost before the last of the sand had stung his eyes, it seemed, the rain began, pelting down in big scattered drops that felt good after all the grit. But the drops got thicker and less scattered and soon the rain fell in sheets, blown this way and that at first by the fitful wind. Then the world simply turned to water. In a bright flash of lightning Newt saw a wet, frightened coyote run across a few feet in front of Mouse. After that he saw nothing. The water beat down more heavily even than the wind and the sand: it pounded him and ran in streams off his hat brim. Once again he gave up and simply sat and let Mouse do what he wanted. As far as he knew, he was completely lost, for he had moved away from the cattle in order to escape the lightning and had no sense that he was anywhere near the herd. The rain was so heavy that at moments he felt it might drown him right on his horse. It blew in his face and poured into his lip from his hat brim. He had always heard that cowboying involved considerable weather, but had never expected so many different kinds to happen in one night. An hour before, he had been so hot he thought he would never be cool again, but the drenching water had already made him cold.Mouse was just as dejected and confused as he was. The ground was covered with water—there was nothing to do but splash along. To make matters worse they hit another thicket and had to back out, for the wet mesquite had become quite impenetrable. When they finally got around it the rain had increased in force. Mouse stopped and Newt let him—there was no use proceeding when they didn’t know where they needed to proceed. The water pouring off his hat brim was an awkward thing—one stream in front, one stream behind. A stream of water poured right in front of his nose while another sluiced down his back.
>> Lonesome Dove 孤鸽镇