"Wal, if heah ain't ole Pan Smith," announced Blinky, vociferously. "Gus, take a peep at him. I'll bet he's got hold of a grand hoss. Nothing else could make him look like thet."

"No. I just got back my girl," replied Pan gaily.

"Gurl! Say, cowboy," began Blinky, in consternation. "You didn't run foul of thet little Yellow Mine kid?"

"Eat your supper, you hungry-looking galoot," replied Pan. "And you too, Gus... Because if I begin to shoot off my chin now you'll forget the grub."

Thus admonished, and with curious glances at Pan, the cowboys took his advice and attacked the generous meal Juan had set before them. Their appetites further attested to a strenuous day. Pan did not seem to be hungry, which fact caused Juan much concern.

"Ahuh! It's the way a fellar gets when he's in love with a gurl," observed the keen Blinky. "I been there."

After supper they got together before the stove and rolled their cigarettes. The cold night wind, with its tang of mountain heights, made the fire most agreeable. Pan spread his palms to the heat.

"Wal, pard, throw it off your chest before you bust," advised Blinky shrewdly.

"What kind of a day did you boys have?" countered Pan with a laugh.

"Good an' bad," replied Gus, while Blinky shook his head. "Some hoss thieves have been runnin' off our stock. We had some fine hosses, not broke yet. Some we wanted to keep."

"What's the good news?" queried Pan, as Hans hesitated.

"Pan, I'll be doggoned if we didn't see a million broomies today," burst out Blinky.

"No. Now, Blink, talk sense," remonstrated Pan. "You mean you saw a thousand?"

"Wal, shore a million is stretchin' it some," acknowledged the cowboy. "But ten thousand wouldn't be nothin'. We tracked some of our hosses twenty miles an' more over heah, farther'n we'd been yet. An' climbed a high ridge we looked down into the purtiest valley I ever seen. Twice as big as Hot Springs Valley. Gee, it lay there gray an' green with hosses as thick as greasewood bushes on the desert. Thet valley hasn't been drove yet. It's purty rough gettin' up to where you can see. An' there's lots of hosses closer to town. Thet accounts."

"Blinky, is this talk of yours a leaf out of Lying Juan's book?" asked Pan incredulously. "It's too good to be true."

"Pan, I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles," protested Blinky. "Ask Gus. He seen them."

"For onct Blinky ain't out of his haid," corroborated Hans. "Never saw so many wild hosses. An' if we can find a way to ketch some of them we'll be rich."

"Boys, you told me you'd been trapping horses at the water holes," said Pan.

"Shore, we've been moonshinin' them," replied Blinky. "We build a corral round a water hole. Make a wide gate we can shut quick. Then we lay out on moonlight nights waitin' for 'em to come in to drink. We've done purty darn good at it, too."

"That's fun, but it's a two-bit way to catch wild horses," rejoined Pan.

"Wal, they're all doin' it thet way. Hardman's outfit, an' a couple more besides us. I figgered myself it was purty slow, but no better way come to me. Do you know one?"

"Do I? Well, I should smile. I know more than one that'll beat your moonshining. Back on the prairie where it's all wide and bare there's no chance for a small outfit. But this is high country, valleys, canyons, cedars. Boys, we can make one big stake before the other outfits get on to us."

"By gosh, one's enough for us," declared Blinky. "Then we can shake this gold-claim country where they steal your empty tin cans an' broken shovels."

"One haul will do me, too," agreed Pan. "Then Arizona for me."

"Ah-uh!... Pan, how aboot this gurl?"

Briefly then Pan told his story, and the situation as it looked to him at the moment. The response of these cowboys was what he had expected. He knew them. Warmhearted, simple, elemental, they responded in different ways, but with the same fire. Gus Hans looked his championship while Blinky raved and swore.

"Then you're both with me?" asked Pan, tersely. "Mind, it's no fair deal, my getting your support here for helping you with a wild horse drive."

"Fair, hell!" returned Blinky, forcibly. "It ain't like you to insult cowboys."

"I'm begging your pardon," replied Pan, hastily. "But we'd never been pardners and I hesitated to draw you into a scrap that'll almost sure go to gun throwing."

"Wal, we're your pardners now, an' damn proud of it, Panhandle Smith."

Silently and grimly they all shook hands on it. Not half a dozen times in his range life had Pan been party to a compact like that.

"This Blake fellar, now," began Blinky, as he lighted another cigarette. "What's your idea of gettin' him out?"

"I want a horse, a blanket, some grub and a gun. I'm to take them down to the jail at eleven o'clock."

"Huh! Goin' to hold up the guard?" queried Blinky.

"That was my intention," replied Pan, "but I know that fellow Hurd, who'll be on guard then. I'll not have to hold him up."

"Hurd? I know him. Hard nut, but I think he's square."

"Reckon Hurd will lose his job," said Pan reflectively. "If he does, let's take him with us on the wild horse deal."

"Suits me. An' he'll shore love thet job. Hurd hasn't any use for Matthews."

"Blinky, do you know another man we can hire or get to throw in with us? We've got five now counting my dad, and we'll need at least six."

"Why so many? It'll cut out profits."

"No, it'll increase them. One good rider means a great deal to us."

"Then let's get thet miner, Charley Brown."

"But he's working a gold claim."

"Wal, if I know anythin' he'll not be workin' it any longer than findin' blue dirt. Gus an' me seen Jard Hardman with two men ridin' out thet way this mawnin'."

"Ah!... So Hardman is here now.—We'll hunt up Brown and see what he says. Suppose we walk downtown now."

"All right, but let me get a hoss up for Blake," replied Blinky. "Gus, you find thet old saddle of mine, an' a blanket. There's an old canvas saddlebag an' water bottle heah somewheres. Ask Juan. An' get him to pack the grub."

The night of the sabbath was no barrier to the habitues of the Yellow Mine. But early in the evening it was not yet in full swing. The dance was on with a few heavy-footed miners and their gaudy partners, and several of the gambling tables were surrounded.

Pan stalked about alone. His new-found cowboy friends had been instructed to follow him unobtrusively. Pan did not wish to give an impression that he had taken up with allies. He was looking for Charley Brown, but he had a keen roving eye for every man in sight. It was doubtful if Hardman or Matthews could have espied Pan first, unless they were hidden somewhere. He took up a position, presently, behind one of the poker games, with his back to the wall, so that he had command of the room. A stiff game was in progress, which Pan watched casually. Blinky and Gus lounged around, with apparently no more aim than other idle drinking visitors of the place.

Gradually more men came in, the gaming tables filled up, and the white-armed girls appeared to mingle with the guests.

Pan espied the girl Louise before she had become aware of his presence. She appeared to be more decently clad, a circumstance that greatly added to her charm, in his opinion. Curiously he studied her. Women represented more to Pan than to most men he had had opportunity to meet or observe. He never forgot that they belonged to the same sex as his mother. So it was natural he had compassion for this unsexed dance-hall, gambling-lure girl. She was pretty in a wild sort of way, dissolute, abandoned, yet not in any sense weak. A terrible havoc showed in her face for anyone with eyes to see beneath the surface. Pan noted a strange restlessness in her that at first he imagined was the seeking instinct of women of her class. But it was only that she could not sit or stand still. Her hawklike eyes did not miss anyone there, and finally they located him. She came around the tables up to Pan, and took hold of his arm.

"Howdy, Handsome," she said, smiling up at him.

Pan doffed his sombrero and bade her good evening.

"Don't do that," she said. "It irritates me."

"But, Louise, I can't break a habit just to please you," he replied smiling.

"You could stay out of here. Didn't I warn you not to come back?

"Yes, but I thought you were only fooling. Besides I had to come."

"Why? You don't fit here. You've got too clean a look."

Pan gazed down at her, feeling in her words and presence something that prompted him to more than kindliness and good nature.

"Louise, I can return the compliment. You don't fit here."

"Damn you!" she flashed. "I'll fall in love with you."

"Well, if you did, I'd sure drag you out of this hell," replied Pan, bluntly.

"Come away from these gamblers," she demanded, and drew him from behind the circle to seats at an empty table. "I won't ask you to drink or dance. But I'm curious. I've been hearing about you."

"That so? Who told you?"

"I overheard Dick Hardman tonight, just before supper. He has a room next to mine in the hotel here, when he stays in town. He was telling his father about you. Such cussing I never heard. I'm giving you a hunch. They'll do away with you."

"Thanks. Reckon it's pretty fine of you to put me on my guard."

"I only meant behind your back.—What has Dick against you?"

"We were kids together back in Texas. Just natural rivals and enemies. But I hadn't seen him for years till last night. Then he didn't know me."

"He knows you now all right. He ran into you today?"

"I reckon he did," replied Pan, with a grim laugh.

"Panhandle, this is getting sort of warm," she said, leaning across the table to him. "I'm not prying into your affairs. But I could be your friend. God knows I like a man."

"That's the second compliment you've paid me tonight. What're you up to, Louise?"

"See here, cowboy, when I pay any two-legged hombre compliments you can gamble they are sincere."

"All right, no offense meant."

"Do you resent my curiosity?"

"No."

"I've got you figured right when I say you're in trouble. You're looking for someone?"

"Yes."

"I knew it," she retorted, snapping her fingers. "And that's Hardman and his outfit ... I didn't hear all Dick said. When he talked loud he cussed. But I heard enough to tie up Panhandle Smith with this girl Lucy and the Hardman outfit."

Pan eyed her steadily. She was encroaching upon sacred ground. But her feeling was genuine, and undoubtedly she had some connection with a situation which began to look complex. The same instinct that operated so often with Pan in his relation to men of the open now subtly prompted him. Regardless of circumstances he knew when to grasp an opportunity.

"Louise, you show that you'd risk taking a chance on me—a stranger," he replied, with quick decision. "I return that compliment."

The smile she gave him was really a reward. It gave him a glimpse of the depths of her.

"Who's this girl, Lucy?" she queried.

"She's my sweetheart, ever since we were kids," returned Pan with emotion. "I went to riding the ranges, and well, like so many cowboys, I didn't go back home. When I did go Lucy was gone, my family was gone. I trailed them here—to find that Dick Hardman was about to force Lucy to marry him."

"The —— —— ——!" she burst out. Then after her excitement cooled: "How'd he aim to force her?"

Quickly Pan explained the situation as related to Jim Blake.

"Aha! Easy to savvy. That's where Jard Hardman and Matthews come in.... Panhandle, they're a dirty outfit—and the dirtiest of them is Dick Hardman!"

"What's he to you, Louise?" inquired Pan gravely. "You'll excuse me if I say I can't see you in love with him."

"In love with Dick Hardman?" she whispered, hotly. "My God! I wouldn't soil even my hands on him—if I didn't have to.... He met me in Frisco. He brought me to this damned stinking rough hole. He made me promises he never kept. Not to marry me. Don't get the wrong hunch. He has double-crossed me. And I had to sink to this!... Drunk? Yes, sure I was drunk. Don't you understand I have to be drunk to stand this life? I'm not drunk now because you got here early.... Something deep must be behind my meeting you, Panhandle Smith."

"I hope to heaven it will be to your good—as I know meeting you will be to mine," replied Pan fervently.

"We're off the track," she broke in, and Pan imagined he saw a deeper red under her artificial color. "I despise Dick Hardman. He's stingy, conceited, selfish. He's low down, and he's sinking to worse."

"His father ruined mine," Pan told her. "That's what brought Dad out here—to try to get something back from Jard Hardman. No use. He only got another hard deal."

"That cowboy who was in here with you last night—Blinky Moran. His claim was jumped by Hardman."

"Louise, how'd you know that?" asked Pan in surprise.

"Don't give me away. Blinky told me. He's one of my friends and he's a white man if I ever saw one.... He has been in love with me. Wanted me to marry him! Poor crazy boy! I sure had to fight—and get drunker—to keep from more than liking him. He spent all his money on me and I had to make him quit."

"Well, that little bow-legged cowboy liar! He's as deep as the sea."

"Keep it secret, Panhandle," she responded seriously. "I don't want to hurt his feelings.... To get back to the Hardmans. They've taken strong hold here. The old man owns half of Marco. He's in everything. But it's my hunch I'm giving you—that he's in the straight deals only to cover the crooked ones. That's where the money is."

"Yet Jard Hardman will not square up with Dad!" exclaimed Pan.

"Now tell me why you come into the Yellow Mine. Is it to court trouble? You're taking an awful chance. Every night or so some tipsy miner gets robbed or knifed, or shot."

"Louise, in dealing with men of really dangerous quality your only chance is to face them with precisely the same thing. As for the four-flushers like Matthews and men of the Hardman stamp, the one thing they can't stand is nerve. They haven't got it. They don't understand it. They fear it. It works on their consciousness. They begin to figure on what the nervy man means to do before they do anything.... If I did not show myself in the street, and here, the Hardman outfit would soon run true to their deals. So by appearing to invite and seek a fight I really avoid one."

"So that's why they call you Panhandle Smith?" queried the girl, meditatively. "I mean with the tone old man Hardman used. They call me Angel. But that doesn't mean what it sounds, does it?"

"I can't figure you, Louise," replied Pan dubiously.

"I'm glad you can't.... Hello, there's Blinky and his pard Gus. What're they up to?"

"They are looking pretty hard, but it can't be for you and me. They saw us long ago."

"There! Hardman and Matthews, coming from behind the bar. There's a private office in behind. You can see the door.... Panhandle, let me tell you Hardman seldom shows up here."

Pan leisurely got to his feet. His eye quickly caught Matthews' black sombrero, then the big ham of a face, with its drooping mustache. Pan could not see anyone with him until they got out from behind the crowded bar. Then Pan perceived that Matthews' companion was a stout man, bearded, dressed like a prosperous rancher.

"Louise, is that man with Matthews the gentleman we have been discussing?" asked Pan.

"That's the rich fat bloated —— —— ——," replied the girl with eyes like a hawk. "You don't talk straight, Panhandle."

"I'm not quite so free as you are with bad language," replied Pan, smiling down on her. Then with deft movement he hitched his belt round farther forward on his hip. It was careless, it might have been accidental, but it was neither. And the girl grasped its meaning. She turned white under her paint, and the eyes that searched Pan were just then like any other woman's.

"Cowboy, what're you going to do?" she whispered, reaching for him.

"I don't know exactly. You can never tell how actions are going to be taken. But I mean well."

"Stop!" she called low after him. "You smiling devil!"

Pan moved leisurely in among the tables toward the bar and the two men standing rather apart from the crowd. He maneuvered so that Matthews' roving glance fell upon him. Then Pan advanced straight. He saw the sheriff start, then speak hurriedly to Hardman.

Pan halted within six feet of both men. He might never have seen Jard Hardman so far as any recognition was concerned. He faced a man of about fifty years of age, rather florid of complexion, well fed and used to strong drink.

"Excuse me," spoke Pan, with most consummate coolness, addressing the shorter man. Apparently he did not see Matthews. "Are you Jard Hardman?"

"Reckon I am, if that's any of your business," came a gruff reply. Light, hard, speculative eyes took Pan in from head to feet.

"Do you recognize me?" asked Pan, in the same tone.

"No, Sir, I never saw you in my life," retorted Hardman, his bearded chin working up and down with the vehemence of his speech. And he turned away.

Pan made a step. His long arm shot out, and his hand, striking hard Ml Hardman's shoulder, whirled him round.

"My name's Smith," called Pan, in vibrant loud voice that stilled the room. "Panhandle Smith!"

"I don't know you, Sir," replied Hardman, aghast and amazed. He began to redden. He turned to Matthews, as if in wonder that this individual permitted him to be thus affronted.

"Well, you knew my dad—to his loss," declared Pan. "And that's my business with you."

"You've no business with me," fumed Hardman.

"Reckon you're mistaken," went on Pan, slowly and easily. "I'm Bill Smith's boy. And I mean to have an accounting with you on that Texas cattle deal."

These deliberate words, heard by all within earshot, caused little less than a deadlock throughout the room. The bartenders quit, the drinkers poised glasses in the air, the voices suddenly hushed. Pan had an open space behind him, a fact he was responsible for. He faced Matthews, Hardman, and then the length of the bar. He left the gamblers behind to Blinky and Gus, who stood to one side. Pan had invited an argument with the owner of the Yellow Mine and his sheriff ally. Every westerner in the room understood its meaning.

"You upstart cowpuncher!" presently shouted Hardman. "Get out of here or I'll have you arrested."

"Arrest me! What for? I'm only asking you for an honest deal. I can prove you cheated my father out of cattle. You can't arrest me for that."

Hardman guffawed boisterously. "Get out of here with your insolent talk about cattle deals."

"I won't get out. You can't put me out, even if you do own the place."

"I'll—I'll—" choked Hardman, his body leaping with rage, his face growing purple under his beard. Then he turned to Matthews. "Throw this drunken cowboy out."

That focused attention upon the sheriff. Pan read in Matthews' eyes the very things he had suspected. And as he relaxed the mental and muscular strain under which he had waited, he laughed in Matthews' face.

"Bah! Hardman, you're backed by the wrong man. And at last you've run into the wrong man. Haven't you sense enough to see that?... You cheated my father. Now you're going to make it good."

Hardman, furious and imperious, never grasped the significance that had frozen Matthews. He was thick, arrogant. He had long been a power wherever he went. Yielding to rage he yelled at Pan.

"Bill Smith sicked his cowpuncher on me, hey? Like father, like son! You're a rustler breed. I'll drive you—"

Pan leaped like a tiger and struck Hardman a terrible blow in the face. Like something thrown from a catapult he went into the crowd next the bar, and despite this barrier and the hands grasping at his flying arms he crashed to the floor. But before he fell Pan had leaped back in the same position he had held in front of Matthews.

"He lied," cried Pan. "My dad, Bill Smith, was as honest a cattleman as ever lived.... Mr. Sheriff, do you share that slur cast on him?"

"I don't know Bill Smith," replied Matthews hastily. "Reckon I'm not talkin' agin men I don't know.... An' as I'm not armed I can't argue with a gun-packin' cowboy."

Thus he saved his face with the majority of those present. But he did have a gun. Pan knew that as well as if he had seen it. Matthews was not the "even break" stripe of sheriff.

"Ah-huh!" ejaculated Pan sardonically. "All right. Then I'll be looking for you to arrest me next time we meet."

"I'll arrest you, Panhandle Smith, you can gamble on thet," declared Matthews harshly.

"Arrest nothing," replied Pan with ringing scorn. "You're a four-flush sheriff. I'll gamble you elected yourself. I know your kind, Matthews. And I'll gamble some more that you don't last long in Marco."

This was, as Pan deliberately intended, raw talk that any man not a coward could not swallow. But Matthews was a coward. That appeared patent to all onlookers, in their whispers and nodding heads. Whatever prestige he had held there in that rough mining community was gone, until he came out to face this fiery cowboy with a gun. White and shaking he turned to the group of men who had gotten Hardman to his feet. They led him out the open door and Matthews followed.

Pan strode back to the table where Louise sat tense and wide eyed. The hum of voices began again, the clatter of glasses, the clink of coin. The incident had passed.

"Well, little girl, I had them figured, didn't I?" asked Pan, calling a smile to break his tight cold face.

"I don't—know what—ails me," she said, breathlessly. "I see fights every night. And I've seen men killed—dragged out. But this got my nerve."

"It wasn't much to be excited about. I didn't expect any fight."

"Your idea was to show up Hardman and Matthews before the crowd. You sure did. The crowd was with you. And so am I, Panhandle Smith." She held out a slim hand. "I've got to dance. Good night."



CHAPTER TEN

Pan's exit from the Yellow Mine was remarkable for the generous space accorded him by its occupants.

Outside he laughed a little, as he stood under the flare of yellow light and rolled a cigarette. Knots of men stood on the corners of the street. But the area in front of the saloon was significantly vacant.

"Now if Dad had only been there," soliloquized Pan. "That might have put some life in him."

He sauntered down into the street, and as he went he heard the jangle of spurs behind him. Blinky and Gus covering his rear! Presently, beyond the circle of yellow light, they joined him, one on each side.

"Wal, Pan, I was shore in on thet," said Blink, gripping Pan's arm.

"Say, you called 'em flat. Made 'em swaller a hell of a lot," added Gus, with a hard note in his voice. "When it come down to hard pan they wasn't there."

"Pan, you remember me tellin' you aboot Purcell, who jumped my claim with young Hardman?" queried Blinky. "Wal, Purcell was there, settin' some tables back of where you made your stand. I seen him when we first went in. Course everybody quit playin' cards when you called old Hardman. An' I made it my particular biz to get close to Purcell. He was pullin' his gun under the table when I kicked him. An' when he looked up he seen somethin', you can bet on thet.... Wal, Purcell is one man in Hardman's outfit we'll have to kill.... Gus will back me up on thet."

"I shore will. Purcell's a Nevada claim jumper, accordin' to talk. Somebody hinted he belonged to thet Plummer gang thet was cleaned out at Bannock years ago. He's no spring chicken, thet's shore."

"Point Purcell out to me the first chance you get," replied Pan. "Don't figure I expect to bluff everybody. It can't be done. Somebody will try me out—if only to see what I can do. That's the game, you know."

"Hell, yes. An' all you got to do, Pan, is to be there first."

"Reckon tomorrow will be shore interestin'," remarked Gus.

"That girl Louise gave me a hunch," said Pan thoughtfully. "Struck me she was square.—Blink, you've talked to her, of course?"

"Me? ... Aw!—Couple of times. I reckon. Bought her drinks. She won't look at me unless she's drunk," replied Blink, both confused and gloomy.

"You've got Louise figured wrong, cowboy," returned Pan. "I'll prove it to you sometime.... Now let's get down to business, and plan Blake's release from jail. I want to lead the horse round about, so I won't be seen by anybody."

"Shore, thet'll be easy," replied Blinky. "I'll go with you. We can keep to the slope a ways an' then go down an' come up on the other side of town. No roads an' no houses."

They returned to camp, and replenishing the fire sat around it talking of the wild-horse drive.

About ten o'clock Blinky went to the corral, saddled a horse, and led him back to the tent. There they put on the blanket and saddlebags. Blinky produced a gun he could spare, and then thoughtfully added a small bag of grain for the horse.

"It's darker'n the milltail of Hades," announced Blinky, "an' thet's good fer this kind of work. I'll go ahaid, pickin' out the way, an' you lead the hoss."

So they set out into the black night, working along the base of the slope. No stars showed, and the raw wind hinted of rain or snow. The lights of the town shone dimly. Keen on the breeze floated the discordant music and revelry, from the Yellow Mine and other like dives, in full blast.

Descending the slope required careful slow work. The incline was steep, of soft earth and loose shale. But Blinky knew where to feel his way, and eventually they reached the flat, to find easier progress. Blinky made a detour, and finally, as they gradually approached several lamplights, far apart, he whispered: "You wait heah. I ain't so darn shore which one of them lights comes from the jail."

Pan waited what seemed a long while. At last he heard steps, then made out an object blacker than the black background.

"Found the jail easy, but got off comin' back. Pronto now. Must be near eleven."

Pan kept the dark silent moving form in sight. The dim light grew larger. Then the low flat building loomed up faintly in the dense gloom.

"Go ahead," whispered Blinky. "I'll hold the hoss."

Pan went swiftly up to the wall, and thence along it to the corner. The light came from an open door. He listened. There was no sound. Luckily Hurd was alone. Pan slipped round the corner and entered. Hurd sat at the table in the flare of a lamp, turned down low.

"Ha! Was waitin' fer you, an' beginnin' to worry," he said, in hoarse whisper.

"Plenty of time, if Blake's all ready," replied Pan.

"I'm givin' you a hunch. He's damn queer fer a fellar who expects to break jail."

"No matter. Let's get at it, pronto."

Hurd got up, and laid his gun on the table. Then he turned over the bench, threw papers on the floor. "Thar's the key, an' heah's a rope. Hawg-tie me."

With that he turned his back. Swiftly Pan bound him securely, and let him down upon the floor. Then he unlocked the door, opened it. Pitch darkness inside and no sound! He called in low voice. Blake did not reply. Muttering in surprise, Pan took the lamp and went into the room. He found Blake asleep, though fully dressed. Pan jerked him roughly out of that indifferent slumber.

"It's Smith," he said, bluntly. "You sure must want to get out.... Damn you, Blake, this whole deal looks fishy to me!... Come on."

Leaving the lamp there, Pan dragged the man out, through the dark entrance room, into the night. In another moment they had reached the horse and Blinky.

"Here's money and a gun," whispered Pan, swiftly. "You'll find grub, blanket, grain on your saddle. Get on!" Pan had to half lift Blake upon the horse. He felt of the stirrups. "They're all right... The road is that way, about fifty yards. Turn to the left and ride. Remember, Siccane."

Blake rode away into the darkness without a word. Pan watched and listened. Presently he heard the hard clip-clop of hoofs on the road, making to the left.

"Good! He'll ride past where Lucy's sleeping. I wish she could know," muttered Pan.

"Was he drunk?" queried Blinky, in a hoarse whisper. "Shore funny fer a sober man."

"He didn't breathe like he was drunk," replied Pan. "But he flabbergasted me. Found him asleep! And he never said a darned word... Blink, it sticks in my craw. Reckon he didn't want to leave that nice warm bed."

"Ahuh! Wal, let's rustle back to our warm beds," said the cowboy gruffly.

Pan awakened during the latter part of the night. Rain was pattering on the tent. The wind moaned. He thought of Blake, not clad for bad weather and in unfit condition for a long ride, facing the storm. Even then a vague doubt penetrated his drowsy mind.

Morning dawned bright and sparkling after the rain. The air was keen and crisp. The cedars glistened as if decked with diamonds. Pan felt the sweet scent of the damp dust, and it gave him a thrill and a longing for the saddle and the open country.

"Wal, reckon this heah'll be our busy day," drawled Blinky, after making a hearty breakfast of bacon and flapjacks. "Pan, what's first on the ticket?"

"Show me a horse, you bow-legged grub destroyer," replied Pan eagerly.

"Come out to the corral. We got a sorrel as is a real shore enough hoss if you can ride him."

There were a dozen or more horses in the corral. Pan, glancing over them with appraising eye, decided the cowboys had not spoken of them with the degree of satisfaction that they really merited.

"Fine string, Blinky," said Pan, with glistening eyes. "Is that sorrel the one I can't ride?"

"Yep, thet's him. Ain't he a real hoss?"

"Best of the bunch, at first sight. Blinky, are you sure you're not giving me your own horse?"

"Me? I don't care nothin' aboot him," declared Blinky, lying glibly. "Shore he's the orfullest pitchin' son-of-a-gun I ever forked. But mebbe you can ride him."

It developed presently that Pan could ride the sorrel, and that Blinky had done the horse a great injustice. How good to be back in the saddle! Pan wanted to ride down at once to show Lucy his first mount west of the Rockies. Indeed he was possessed of a strong yearning desire to hurry to see Lucy, a feeling that he had to dispel. If all went well he could go to his mother's for dinner. Meanwhile he must meet the exigencies here in Marco.

"Wal, what's next on the ticket?" queried Blinky, who appeared to be rather jerky this morning.

"I'm going downtown," replied Pan.

"Ahuh! I want to trail along with you."

"No, I'll go alone. I'll make my bluff strong, Blinky, or draw Matthews out. Honest, I don't think he'll show."

"Thet yellow dawg? He won't face you, Pan. But he's in thet Hardman outfit, an' one of them—mebbe Purcell—might take a shot at you from a winder. It's been done heah. Let me go with you."

"Well, if they're that low down your being with me wouldn't help much," replied Pan, pondering the matter. "I'll tell you, Blink. Here's how I figure. Marco is a pretty big place. It's full of men. And western men are much alike anywhere. Matthews is no fool. He couldn't risk murdering me in broad daylight, from ambush."

"I'm not trustin' him," said Blinky, somberly. "But I admit the chances are he won't do thet."

"You and Gus pack up for the wild-horse drive," went on Pan briskly. "We ought to get off in the morning. One of you ride out to see if Charley Brown will throw in with us. I'll see Dad at dinner. He'll need horse and outfit. It may turn out we can get our jailer friend, Hurd. Wonder if he lost his job.... Ha! Ha! Well, boys, I'll know more when I see you again."

Pan strolled down toward the town. A familiar unpleasant mental strain dominated his consciousness. His slow, cool, easy nonchalance was all outward. He had done this thing before, but that seemed long ago. His father, Lucy, his mother, somehow made an immense difference between the cowboy reactions of long ago and this stern duty he had set himself today. He hated what his actions meant, what might well ensue from them, yet he was glad it was in him to meet the issue in this way of the West.

By the time he had reached a point opposite the stage office all reflections had passed out of his mind to give place to something sinister.

His alert faculties of observation belied the leisurely manner of his approach to the main street. He was a keen-strung, watching, listening machine. The lighting and smoking of a cigarette was mechanical pretense—he did not want to smoke.

Two men stood in front of the stage office. One was Smith, the agent. Pan approached them, leaned on the hitching rail. But he favored his right side and he faced the street.

"Mornin', cowboy," Smith greeted him, not without nervousness. "See you're down early to git arrested."

"Howdy, Smith. Can you give me a drink?" returned Pan.

"Sorry, but I haven't a drop."

The other man was an old fellow, though evidently he was still active, for his boots and clothes showed the stain and wear of mining.

"Tell you, cowboy," he spoke up, dryly, "you might buy a bottle at the Yellow Mine."

Pan made no reply, and presently the old man shambled away while Smith entered his office. Pan kept his vigil there, watching, waiting. He was seen by dozens of passing men, but none of them crossed toward the stage office. Down the street straggling pedestrians halted to form little groups. In an hour the business of Marco had apparently halted.

Its citizens, the miners who had started to work, the teamsters, Mexicans, cowboys who happened upon the street, suddenly struck attitudes of curious attention, with faces turned toward Pan. They too were waiting, watching.

The porch of the Yellow Mine was in plain sight, standing out on a corner, scarcely more than a hundred yards down the street. Pan saw Hardman and Matthews come out of the hotel. They could not fail to observe the quiet, the absence of movement, the waiting knots of men.

This was the climax of strain for Pan. Leisurely he strolled away from the hitching rail, out into the middle of the street, and down. The closer groups of watchers vanished.

Hardman could be seen gesticulating, stamping as if in rage; and then he went into the hotel, leaving Matthews standing alone. Other men, in the background disappeared. The sheriff stood a moment irresolute, sagging, with his pale hamlike face gleaming. Then he wheeled to enter the hotel.

He had damned himself. He had refused the even break, the man-to-man, the unwritten edict of westerners.

Pan saw this evasion with grim relief. The next move was one easier to perform, though fraught with great peril. Every man in Marco now knew that Pan had come out to meet the men he had denounced. They had been aware of his intention. They had seen him sauntering down the middle of the street. And they had showed what the West called yellow. But they had not showed their claws, if they had any. Pan could well have ended his quest then and there. But to follow it up, to beard the jackals in their den—that was the last word.

As Pan proceeded slowly down the middle of the street the little groups of spectators disintegrated, and slipped out of sight into the stores and saloons. Those farthest from him moved on to halt again. And when any neared the Yellow Mine, they scurried completely out of sight. Pan had the main street to himself. For a few moments not a single man showed himself. Then they began to reappear behind him out of range, slowly following him.

At the entrance to the Yellow Mine, Pan threw away his cigarette, and mounted the steps. He was gambling his life on the code of the westerners. The big hall-like saloon was vacant except for the two bartenders behind the bar, and a Mexican sweeping out the sawdust. Pan had heard subdued voices, the shuffle of feet, the closing of doors. Every muscle in his body was cramped with tension, ready to leap like lightning into action. Advancing to the bar he called for a drink.

"On the house this mawnin'," replied the nearest bartender, smiling. He showed a little nervousness with his hands, otherwise he was composed, and his offer to treat expressed his sentiment. Pan took the bottle with his left hand, poured out some liquor, set the bottle down, and lifted the glass. He had his drink. His tension relaxed.

"Sort of quiet this morning," he said.

"Reckon it is, just now," replied the bartender, significantly.

"Is this Sunday?" went on Pan casually.

"No. Yestiddy was Sunday, so this must be Monday."

"Reckon I might as well move along," remarked Pan, but he did not stir. The bartender went on cleaning glasses. Sounds of footsteps came from outside. Presently Pan walked back through the open door, then halted a moment, to light another cigarette. His back was turned to the bar and the doors. That seemed the climax of his effrontery. It was deliberate, the utter recklessness of the cowboy who had been trained in a hard school. But all that happened was the silence breaking to a gay wild sweet voice: "Call again, cowboy, when there's somebody home!"

Louise had been watching him through some secret peephole. That had been her tribute to him and her scorn of his opponents. It about closed the incident, Pan concluded. Men were now coming along the street in both directions, though not yet close. Some wag yelled from a distance: "Thar ain't no sheriff, Panhandle."

Pan retraced his steps up the street, finding, as before, a clear passage. Men hailed him from doorways, from windows, from behind obstructions. He did not need to be told that they were with him. Marco had been treated to precisely what it wanted. Pan was quick to grasp the mood of these residents who had been so keen about his endeavor to draw out Hardman and Matthews. That hour saw the beginning of the end for these dominant factors in the evil doings of Marco. What deep gratification it afforded Pan! They might thrive for a time, but their heyday had passed. Matthews would be the laughing stock of the town. He could never retrieve. He had been proclaimed only another in the long list of self-appointed officers of the law.

By the time Pan got back to camp his mood actually harmonized with his leisurely, free and careless movements. Still he was hiding something, for he wanted to yell. Blinky saw him coming and yelled for him.

The cowboy was beside himself with a frenzy of delight. It had been hard for him to stay there in camp. He cursed radiantly.

"How's the pack job? All done?" queried Pan, when he could get a word in.

"Pack hell! We plumb forgot," replied Blinky. "What you think—you—you—"

Blinky failed to find adequate words to express his sentiments. Gus was quiet as usual, but he too showed relaxation from a severe ordeal.

"Well, let's get at it now," suggested Pan. "I'll start you boys on it, then ride down to Mother's."

In the succeeding hour, leading to noon, what with sundry trips down to the store, the trio learned some news that afforded much satisfaction. Jim Blake had assaulted a guard and broken jail. No doubt he must have had outside assistance. According to rumor Matthews accused Hurd, the guard, of being party to the escape, and had discharged him. Sentiment in town was not equally divided. Most everybody, according to the informers, was glad Blake had escaped. It developed that the jail was not a civic institution. Already there had been talk of the permanent citizens getting together.

All this was exceedingly welcome to Pan. He could hardly wait till noon to saddle the sorrel, to ride over to his mother's.

"Aw, cowboy, hug thet gurl fer me!" sang Blinky, with ecstatic upward gaze. "Shore she's put the devil in you. An' this heah outfit is steppin' high!"

On the way out to the farm, halfway beyond the outskirts of town, Pan met his father rushing up the road. At sight of Pan he almost collapsed.

"Just—heard—the news," he panted, as Pan reined in the sorrel.

"What news, Dad?" queried Pan, gazing down with both thrill and anxiety at that haggard face, slowly warming out of its havoc.

"Bill Dolan an' his—boys—stopped at the ranch to—tell me," Smith, wiping his clammy face. "They just left town.... Bill saw you take that walk down main street."

"Well, what's that to be all set up about?"

"Reckon I was scared wild... Bill says to me, 'Bill, you oughtn't show yellow like thet. You shore don't savvy thet boy of yours.' ... I thought I did, son, but when it come to a showdown I was chicken-hearted. Your comin' home was a Godsend to Mother an' Lucy. An' more to me! Then to think you might get shot right off.... Wal, it was too much for my stomach."

"Dad, I bluffed them—that's all. I braced them quick and hard, before they could figure. It worked, and I believe I got most of the town with me."

"Pan, is it true that you accused Jard Hardman of robbin' me—an' you knocked him flat?"

"Sure it's true."

"Lord, but I'd like to have seen that," declared Smith vehemently. "An' son, you got Jim Blake out of jail. Bill didn't hint you had anythin' to do with that. But I knew. It was sure great. If only Jim does his part!"

"You doubt that, Dad?"

"Shore do. But I'll tell you, Pan. If we could be with Jim all the time we could pull him up."

"Let's hope he's far on the way to Siccane by now.... Does Lucy know? I hope you didn't tell her about my meeting with Hardman and Matthews?"

"I didn't. But Bill shore did," replied his father. "Reckon I would have squealed, though. Mother an' Lucy have a lot more nerve than me. Fact is, though, Bill didn't give 'em time to go to pieces. He just busted out with news of Blake's escape. Say, boy, you should have seen Lucy."

"I will see her pronto," replied Pan eagerly. "Come on. What're you holding me up for, anyhow?"

Pan walked the horse while his father kept pace alongside.

"Some more news I most forgot," Smith went on. "Bill told about a shootin' scrape out in Cedar Gulch. Them claim jumpers drove a miner named Brown off his claim. They had to fight for it. Brown said he wounded one of 'em. They chased him clean to Satlee's ranch. Shore wanted to kill him or scare him off for good."

"I know Brown," replied Pan. "And from what he told me I've a hunch I know the claim jumpers."

"Wal, that'd be hard to prove. In the early days of a minin' boom there's a lot of trouble. A miner is a crazy fellar often. He'll dig a hole, then move on to dig another. Then if some other prospector comes along to find gold on his last diggin's he yells claim jumpin'. As a matter of fact most of them haven't a real claim till they find gold. An' all that makes the trouble."

"I'll hunt Brown up and persuade him to make the wild-horse drive with us. He's—"

"By George, I forgot some more," interrupted Smith, slapping his leg. "Bill said Wiggate broke with Jard Hardman. Wiggate started this wild-hoss buyin' an' shippin' east. Hardman had to get his finger in the pie. Now Wiggate is a big man an' he has plenty of money. I always heard him well spoken of. Now I'll gamble your callin' Jard Hardman the way you did had a lot to do with Wiggate's break with him."

"Shouldn't wonder," rejoined Pan. "And it's darned good luck for us. The boys ran across a valley full of wild horses over here about twenty miles. Dad, I believe I can trap several thousand wild horses."

"No!" ejaculated his father, incredulously.

"If the boys aren't loco, I sure can," declared Pan positively.

"I can vouch for numbers myself," replied Smith. "An' I've not a doubt in the world but that there valley's not yet hunted. But to ketch the darned scooters, that's the hell of it! Pan, even a thousand head would give me a new start somewhere."

"It's as good as done. Before the snow flies we will be on the way south to Siccane."

"Lord! I'm a younger man than I was a few days ago. Before the snow flies? That's hardly another month. Pan, how'll we travel?"

"Wagons and horseback. We can buy wagon outfits for next to nothing. There's a corral full of them at Black's. Second hand, but good enough."

"Mother an' Lucy will be glad. They hate this country. I don't mind wind if it's not too cold."

"There! Isn't that Lucy at the gate now?" suddenly queried Pan, with piercing gaze ahead.

"Reckon it is," replied his father. "Ride ahead, son. I'll take my time."

Pan urged the sorrel into a lope, then a gallop, and from that to a run. In just a few rods Pan took the measure of this splendid horse. Swift, strong, sure footed and easy gaited, and betraying no sign of a mean spirit, the sorrel won Pan. What a liar Blinky was! He had lied to be generous.

Lucy waved to Pan as he came clattering down the road. Then she disappeared in the green foliage. Arriving at the gate he dismounted and went in. He expected to see her. But she had disappeared. Leading his horse he hurried in toward the house, looking everywhere. The girl, however, was not to be seen.

Bobby was occupied with little wooden playthings on the porch. Pan's gay shout to him brought forth his mother, but no Lucy.

He dropped his bridle, and mounted the porch to embrace his mother, who met him with suppressed emotions. Her hands were more expressive than her words.

"Oh, I'm all here, Mother," he laughed. "Where's Lucy? She was at the gate. Waved to me."

"Lucy ran through the house like a whirlwind," replied his mother, with a smile. "The truth is, my son, she has been quite beside herself since she heard of her father's release from jail. She knew you got him out. She stared at me with her eyes black and wide. 'Mother, he laughed at me—at my fears. He said it'd be easy to free Dad.' ... So she knows, Pan, and I rather think she didn't want us to see her when she meets you. You'll find her in the orchard or down by the brook."

"All right, Mother, I'll find her," replied Pan happily. "We'll be in to dinner pronto. There's a lot to talk about. Dad will tell you."

Pan did not seek Lucy in the orchard. Leaping upon the sorrel he loped down the sandy hard-packed path toward the brook and the shady tree with its bench. Pan knew she would be there. Dodging the overhanging branches he kept peering through the aisles of green for a glimpse of white or a golden head. Suddenly he was rewarded. Lucy stood in the middle of the sunny glade.

Pan rode to her side and leaped from the saddle. Her face was pale, and wet with tears. But her eyes were now dry, wide and purple, radiant with unutterable gladness. She rushed into his arms.

Dinner that day appeared to be something only Bobby and Pan had thought or need of. Mrs. Smith and Lucy, learning they might have to leave in two weeks, surely in four, became so deeply involved in discussion of practical details of preparation, of food supplies for a long wagon trip, of sewing and packing, that they did not indulge in the expression of their joy.

"Dad is hopeless," said Pan, with a grin. "He's worse than a kid. I'll have to pack his outfit, if he has anything. What he hasn't got, we'll buy. So, Mother, you trot out his clothes, boots, some bedding, a gun, chaps, spurs, everything there is, and let me pick what's worth taking."

It was indeed a scant and sad array of articles that Pan had to choose from.

"No saddle, no tarp, no chaps, no spurs, no gun!" ejaculated Pan, scratching his head. "Poor Dad! I begin to have a hunch how he felt."

It developed that all his father possessed made a small bundle that Pan could easily carry into town on his saddle.

"We'll buy Dad's outfit," said Pan briskly. "Mother, here's some money. Use it for what you need. Work now, you and Lucy. You see we want to get out of Marco pronto. The very day Dad and I get back with the horses. Maybe we can sell the horses out there. I'd take less money. It'll be a big job driving a bunch of wild horses in to Marco. Anyway, we'll leave here pronto."

To Lucy he bade a fond but not anxious good-by. "We won't be away long. And you'll be busy. Don't go into town! Not on any account. Send Alice. Or Mother can go when necessary. But you stay home."

"Very well, boss, I promise," replied Lucy roguishly.



CHAPTER ELEVEN

Before dark that night Pan had most of his preparations made, so that next morning there would be nothing to do but eat, pack the horses, saddle up and ride.

At suppertime Charley Brown and Mac New, alias Hurd, called at the camp. The latter was a little the worse for the bottle. Charley was sober, hard, gloomy.

"Howdy, boys. Help yourself to chuck. Then we'll talk," said Pan.

The outcome of that visit was the hiring of both men to go on the wild-horse drive. Brown's claim had been jumped by strangers. It could not be gotten back without a fight. Brown had two horses and a complete outfit; Mac New had only the clothes on his back.

"Fired me 'thout payin' my wages," he said, sullenly.

"Who fired you, Mac?" inquired Pan.

"Hardman, the —— —— ——!" replied Mac New.

"Well! That's strange. Does he own the jail?"

"Huh! Hardman owns this heah whole damn burg."

"Nix," spoke up Blinky. "Don't fool yourself there, pardner. Jard Hardman has a long string on Marco, I'll admit, but somebody's goin' to cut it."

Brown had an interesting account to give of his meeting with Dick Hardman down at Yellow Mine. The young scion of the would-be dictator of Marco fortunes had been drunk enough to rave about what he would do to Panhandle Smith. Some of his maudlin threats, as related by Brown, caused a good deal of merriment in camp, except to Blinky, who grew perfectly furious.

"Hey, cowboy, are you goin' to stand fer thet?" he queried, belligerently.

Pan tried to laugh it off, but Blinky manifestly had seen red at the mention of Dick Hardman's name. He was going over to the Yellow Mine and pick a fight. Pan, finding Blinky stubborn and strange, adopted other tactics. Drawing the irate cowboy aside he inquired kindly and firmly: "It's because of Louise?"

"What's because?" returned Blinky, blusteringly.

"That you want to pick a fight with Dick?"

"Naw," replied Blinky, averting his face.

"Don't you lie to me, Blinky," went on Pan earnestly, shaking the cowboy. "I've guessed your trouble and I'm your friend."

"Wal, Pan, I'm darn glad an' lucky if you're my friend," said Blinky, won out of his sullenness. "But what trouble are you hintin' aboot?"

Pan whispered: "You're in love with Louise."

"What if I am?" hissed Blinky, in fierce shame. "Are you holdin' thet agin me?"

"No, I'm damned if I don't like you better for it."

That was too much for Blinky. He gazed mutely up at Pan, as a dog at his master. Pan never saw such eyes of misery.

"Blinky, that girl is wicked," went on Pan. "She's full of hellfire. But that's only the drink. She couldn't carry on that life without being drunk. She told me so. There's something great about that little girl. I felt it, Blink. I liked her. I told her she didn't belong there. I believe she could be made a good woman. Why don't you try it? I'll help you. She likes you. She told me that, too."

"But Louise won't ever see me unless she's drunk," protested Blinky sorrowfully.

"That's proof. She doesn't want you wasting your time and money at the Yellow Mine. She thinks you're too good for that—when she's sober.... Talk straight now, Blink. You do love her, bad as she is?"

"So help me I do!" burst out the cowboy abjectly. "It's purty near killed me. The more I see of her the more I care. I'm so sorry fer her I cain't stand it.... Dick Hardman fetched her out heah from Frisco. Aw! She must have been bad before thet, I know. But she wasn't low down. Thet dive has done it. Wal, he never cared nothin' fer her an' she hates him. She swears she'll cut his heart out. An' I'm afraid she'll do it. Thet's why I'd like to stick a gun into his belly."

"Marry Louise. Take her away. Come south with us to Arizona," replied Pan persuasively.

"My Gawd, pardner, you're too swift fer me," whispered Blinky huskily, and he clutched Pan. "Would you let us go with you?"

"Sure. Why not? Lucy and my mother know nothing about Louise. Even if they did they wouldn't despise a poor girl you and I believe is good at heart and has been unfortunate. I'd rather not tell them, but I wouldn't be afraid to."

"But Louise won't marry me."

"If we can't talk her into it when she's sober, by heaven we'll get her drunk.... Now Blink, it's settled. Let's stay away from there tonight. Forget it. We'll go out and do the hard riding stunt of our lives. We'll sell horses. With some money we can figure on homes far from this bitter country—homes, cowboy, do you savvy that? With cattle and horses—some fine open grassy rolling country—where nobody ever heard of Blinky Moran and Panhandle Smith."

"Pard, it ain't—my—right name, either," mumbled Blinky, leaning against Pan. He was crying.

"No difference," replied Pan, holding the boy tight a moment. "Brace up, now, Blink. It's all settled. Go to bed now, I'll help Gus with the horses."

Pan left the cowboy there in the darkness, and returned to camp. His conscience questioned him, but he had only satisfaction, even gladness in reply. Blinky had been one of the wild cowboys, and had been going from bad to worse. If an overpowering love gripped him, a yielding to it in a right way might make a better man of him. Pan could not see anything else. He had known more than one good-for-nothing cowboy, drinking and gambling himself straight to hell, who had fooled his detractors and had taken the narrow trail for a woman others deemed worthless. There was something about this kind of fight that appealed to Pan. As for the girl, Louise Melliss, and her reaction to such a desperate climax, Pan had only his strange faith that it might create a revolution in her soul. At least he was absolutely sure she would never return to such a life, and she was young.

Pan sought his blankets very late, and it seemed he scarcely had closed his eyes when Juan called him. It was pitch dark outside. The boys were stirring, the horses pounding, the campfire crackling. He pulled on his boots with a will. Glad he was to return to the life of camps, horses, cold dawns, hard fare and hard riding. He smelled the frying ham, the steaming coffee.

"Mawnin', pardner," drawled Blinky. "Shore thought you was daid. Grab a pan of grub heah.... An' say, cowboy, from now on you can call me Somers—Frank Somers. I'm proud of the name, but I reckon it was ashamed of me."

"Ah-huh! All right, Blink Somers," replied Pan cheerfully. "You'll always be Blink to me."

They ate standing and sitting before the campfire, in the chill blackness just beginning to turn gray. Then swift hands and lean strong arms went at beds and packs, horses and saddles. When dawn broke the hunters were on their way, far up the cedar slope.

Pan gazed back and down upon Marco, a ragged one-street town of motley appearance, its white tents, its adobe huts, its stone buildings, and high board fronts, mute and still in the morning grayness. What greed, what raw wild life slept there!

Far beyond the town he saw the green-patched farm, the little gray cabin where his mother and Lucy slept, no doubt dreaming of the hopes he had fostered in them. Some doubt, some fear, intangible and inexplicable, passed over him as he looked. Would all be well with Lucy? There was indeed much to be feared, and he could never give happiness full rein until he had her safe away from Marco.

Once out of sight of the town Pan forced himself to the job ahead. And as always, to ride a good-gaited horse with open country ahead lulled his mind into content.

Blinky was first, leading a pack horse. Pan followed next, and the other four men strung out behind, with bobbing pack horses between. This ridge was the high ground between Marco Valley and Hot Springs Valley. Soon the trail led down, and it was dusty. The rising sun killed the chill in the air, and by the time the hunters had reached level ground again it was hot. There was alkali dust to breathe, always an abomination. From above, Pan had espied a green spot fifteen miles or more down the valley. A number of dust devils were whirling around it.

"What's that, Blink?" Pan had asked, pointing.

"Thet's Hot Springs, an' the dust comes from wild hosses comin' to drink."

They rode across the valley, which appeared to be five or six miles wide, to begin ascending another slope. The pack horses lagged and had to be driven. Up and up the hunters climbed, once more into the cedars. Pan had another view of Hot Springs and the droves of wild horses. He was surprised at their numbers.

"Blink, there must be lots of horses water there."

"Yep. Three thousand or more at this time of year. Many more later, when the droves get run out of the high country by man. An' you see Hardman's outfit has been chasin' them hosses fer two months. They've shore purty well boggered."

"Are many of them branded?"

"Darn few," replied Blinky. "Not more'n five or six in a hundred. The Mexicans call them Arenajos. These wild hosses haven't been worth ketchin' until lately. Most all broomtails. But now an' then you shore see a bunch of dandy mustangs, with a high-steppin' stallion."

"Ah, now, cowboy, you're talking," declared Pan. "You're singing to me. It'll be darn hard for me to sell horses like that."

"Pard, I reckon we won't sell 'em," replied Blinky. "Cain't we use a few strings of real hosses down there in Arizonie?"

"I should smile," replied Pan.

They climbed and crossed that ridge, which could have been called a foothill if there had been any mountains near. Another valley, narrow and rough, not so low as the last, lay between this ridge and the next one, a cedared rise of rock and yellow earth that promised hard going. Beyond it rose the range of mountains, black and purple, and higher still, white peaked into the blue. They called to Pan. This was wild country, and even to see it in the distance was all satisfying.

This narrow valley also showed some wild-horse bands, but not many, for there appeared to be scant grass and water. These horses were going or coming, all on a trot, but when they sighted the hunters they would halt stock-still. Soon a stallion trotted out a hundred paces or more, snorted and whistled, then taking to his heels he led his band away in a cloud of dust. Some of these bands would run a long way; others would halt soon to look back.

The water which they had come to drink was not very good, according to Pan's taste. His sorrel did not like it. This was Pan's first experience with hot alkali water. It came out almost boiling, too hot to drink, but a few rods from the spring it cooled off.

The spring was surrounded by low trees still green, though many of the leaves had turned yellow. While the hunters watered there, Pan espied another herd of wild horses that trooped in below, and drank from the stream. He counted ten horses, mostly blacks and bays. The leader was a buckskin, and Pan would not have minded owning him. The others were not bad looking, of fair size, weighing around a thousand pounds, but they showed inbreeding. After they had drunk their fill they pawed the mud and rolled in the water, to come up most unsightly beasts. Pan let out a loud yell. Swift as antelopes the horses swept away.

"Shore they left there!" drawled Blinky. Then talking to his own horse, which he slapped with his sombrero, he said: "Now you smelled them broomies, didn't you? Want to run right off an' turn wild, huh! Wal, I'll shore keep a durn sharp eye on you, an' hobble you too."

All the saddle horses, and even some of the pack animals, were affected by the scent of the wild herd. Freedom still lived deep down in their hearts. That was why a broken horse, no matter how gentle, became the wildest of the wild when he got free.

Pan had been right in his judgment of the lay of the land on the next ridge. Climbing it was difficult.

"When we ketch the wild hosses we can drive them down the valley an' round to the road," said Blinky, evidently by way of excuse. "It'll be longer, but easy travelin'. Shore we couldn't drive any broomtails heah."

The summit of this ridge was covered with pinons and cedars, growing in heavy clumps around outcropping of ledges. Pan espied the blue flash of deer, through the gray and green. Deer sign was plentiful, a fact he observed with pleasure, for he liked venison better than beef.

It was rather a wide-topped ridge, and not until Pan had reached an open break on the far side could he see what kind of country lay beyond.

"Wal, there she is, my wild hoss valley," said Blinky, who sat his horse alongside of Pan. "An' by golly, thet's the name for her—Wild Hoss Valley. Hey, pard?"

Pan nodded his acquiescence. In truth he had been rendered quite speechless by the wildness and beauty of the scene below and beyond him. A valley that had some of the characteristics of a canyon yawned beneath, so deep and wide that it appeared like a blue lake, so long that he could only see the north end, which notched under a rugged mountain slope, green and black and golden and white according to the successive steps toward the heights.

The height upon which he stood was the last of the ridges, for the elevation that lay directly across was a noble range of foothills, timbered, canyoned, apparently insurmountable for horses. Gray cliffs stood out of the green, crags of yellow rock mounted like castles.

But it was the blue floor of the valley that longest held Pan's enraptured gaze. It looked level, though to an experienced eye that was deceitful. Grass and sage! What were the innumerable colored rocks or bushes or dots that covered the whole floor of the valley? Pan wondered. Then he did not need to ask. They were wild horses!

"Aw, Blink! This'll be hard to leave!" he expostulated, as if his friend were to blame for this unexpected and bewildering spectacle.

"You bet your sweet life it will," agreed Blinky. "But we cain't hang up heah, moon eyed an' ravin'. We're holdin' up the outfit an' it's a long way down to water."

"Have you picked out a place where we'll be away—out of sight?" queried Pan quickly.

"Wal, pard, I'm no wild hoss wrangler like you say you are, but I've got hoss sense," drawled Blinky, as he urged his animal back into the yellow trail.

Pan dismounted to walk, a habit he had always conformed to on steep trails, when his horse needed freeing of a burden, and his own legs were the better for action. At times he got a glimpse of the valley through a hole in the trees, but for the most part he could not see downward at all. Then he gazed across the open gulf to the mountains. These were not like the Rockies he knew so well by sight, the great white-crowned sky-piercing peaks of Montana. These belonged more to the desert, were wilder, with more color, not so lofty, and as ragged as jagged rock and fringed timber could make them. Gradually, as he descended the trail, this range dropped back out of his sight.

At near the sunset hour, when the journey was ended, Pan had to compliment Blinky on the beautiful place to which he had guided them. It was isolated, and singularly fitted to their requirements. The slope they had descended ran out into an immense buttress jutting far into the valley. A low brushy arm of the incline extended out a half mile to turn toward the main slope and to break off short, leaving a narrow opening out into the valley. The place was not only ideal for a hidden camp site, with plenty of water, grass, wood, but also for such a wild-horse trap as Pan had in mind. What astonished Pan was that manifestly Blinky had not seen the possibilities of this peculiar formation of slope as a trap into which wild horses could be chased.

"How wide is that gap?" asked Pan.

"Reckon it cain't be more'n the length of two lassoes," replied Blinky.

"Rope it off high, boys, and turn the stock loose. This corral was made for us," said Pan, enthusiastically.

They set to work, each with self-assumed tasks that soon accomplished the whole business of pitching camp. Suppertime found them a cheerful, hungry, hopeful little band. Pan's optimism dominated them. He believed in his luck, and they believed in him.

Dusk settled down into this neck of the great valley. Coyotes barked out in the open. From the heights pealed down the mournful blood-curdling, yet beautiful, bay of a wolf. The rosy afterglow of sunset lingered a long time. The place was shut in, closed about by brushy steeps, redolent of sage. A tiny stream of swift water sang faintly down over rocks. And before darkness had time to enfold hollow and slope and horizon, the moon slid up to defeat the encroaching night and blanch the hills with silvery light.

Interrogation by Pan brought out the fact that Blinky had never been down this trail at all. It was only a wild horse trail anyway. Blinky had viewed the country from the heights above, and this marvelously secluded arm of the valley had been as unknown to him as to Pan.

"Luck!" burst out Pan when the circumstance became clear. "Say, Blink, if your horse would jump you off a cliff you'd come up with Queen Victoria on your arm!"

Lying Juan sometimes broke into the conversation, very often by reason of his defective hearing and his appalling habit of falsehood, bringing his companions to the verge of hysterics.

"Yes, yes, I was over to her place two, tree times," began Juan, brightening with each word. "I drive en to many horse to her ranch. You bet I sell some damn good horse to Queen Victorie. I can tell you myself Queen Victorie is a fine little woman I ever seen on my life. She make big a dance for me when I never seen so much supper on my life. I dance with her myself an' she ata me an' say, 'Juanie, I never dance lika this en my life till I dance with you,' yes, that's sure what she tell me to my own face an' eyes."

Pan was the only one of Juan's listeners who had power of speech left, and he asked: "Juan, did you play any monte or poker with the queen?"

"You bet. She playa best game of poker I ever seen on my life an' she won tree hunred dollars from me."

Whereupon Pan succumbed to the riotous mirth. This laughter tickled Lying Juan's supreme vanity. He was a veritable child in mentality, though he spoke English better than most Mexican laborers. Blinky was the only one who ever tried to match wits with Lying Juan.

"Juan, thet shore reminds me of somethin'," began Blinky impressively. "Yea, hit shore does. Onct I almost got hitched up with Victorie. I was sort of figgerin' on marryin' her, but she got leary o' my little desert farm back in Missourie. She got sorter skeered o' coyotes an' Injins. Now, I ain't got no use fer a woman like her an' thet's why me an' Queen Victorie ain't no longer friends."

Most of the talk, however, invariably switched back to the burning question of the hour—wild horses. Pan had to attempt to answer a hundred queries, many of which were not explicit to his companions or satisfactory to himself. Finally he lost patience.

"Say, you long-eared jackasses," he exploded. "I tell you it all depends on the lay of the land. I mean the success of a big drive. If round the corner here there's good running ground—well, it'll be great for us. We'll look the ground over and size up the valley for horses. Find where they water and graze. If we decide to use this place as a trap to drive into we'll throw up two blind corrals just inside that gateway out there. Then we'll throw a fence of cedars as far across the valley as we can drag cedars. The farther the better. It'll have to be a fence too thick and high for horses to break through or jump over. That means work, my buckaroos, work! When that's done we'll go up the valley, get behind the wild horses and drive them down."

Loud indeed were the commendations showered upon Pan's plan.

Blinky, who alone had not voiced his approval, cast an admiring eye upon Pan.

"Shore I've got dobe mud in my haid fer brains," he said, with disgust. "Simple as apple pie, an' I never onct thought of ketchin' wild hosses thet a way."

"Blink, that's because you never figured on a wholesale catch," replied Pan. "Moonshining wild horses, as you called it, and roping, and creasing with a rifle bullet, never answered for numbers. It wouldn't pay us to try those methods. We want at least a thousand head in one drive."

"Aw! Aw! Pan, don't work my hopes to believin' thet," implored Blinky, throwing up his hands.

"Son, I'm cryin' for mercy too," added Pan's father. "An' I'm goin' to turn in on that one."

Lying Juan, either from design or accident, found this an admirable opening.

"My father was big Don in Mexico. He hada tree tousand vacqueros on our rancho. We chase wild horse many days, more horse than I ever see on my life. I helpa lass more horse than I ever see on my life. I make tree tousand peso by my father's rancho."

"Juan, I pass," declared Pan. "You've got my hand beat. Boys, let's unroll the tarps. It has been a sure enough riding day."



CHAPTER TWELVE

Pan's father was an early riser, and next morning he routed everybody out before the clear white morning star had gone down in the velvet blue sky.

Before breakfast, while the others were wrangling horses, packing wood and water, he climbed the steep end of the bluff between camp and the valley. Upon his return he was so excited over the number of wild horses which he claimed to have seen that Pan feared he had fallen victim to Lying Juan's malady.

"I hope Dad's not loco," said Pan. "But our luck is running heavy. Let's play it for all we're worth. I'll climb that bluff, too, and see for myself. Then we'll ride out into the valley, get the lay of the land, and find the best place for our trap."

Blinky accompanied Pan to the ridge which they climbed at a point opposite camp. Probably it was four or five hundred feet high, and provided a splendid prospect of the valley. Pan could scarcely believe his eyes. He saw wild horses—so many that for the time being he forgot the other important details. He counted thirty bands in a section of the valley no more than fifteen miles long and less than half as wide. These were individual bands, keeping to themselves, each undoubtedly having a leader.

Blinky swore lustily in his enthusiasm, evidently thinking of the money thus represented. "—— —— —— who'd ever think of these heah broomies turnin' into a gold mine?" he ended his tribute to the scene.

But to Pan it meant much more than fortune; indeed at first he had no mercenary thought whatsoever. Horses had been the passion of his life. Cattle had been only beef, hoofs, horns to him. Horses he loved. Naturally then wild horses would appeal to him with more thrill and transport than those that acknowledged the mastery of man.

Cowboys were of an infinite variety of types, yet they all fell under two classes: Those who were brutal with horses and those who were gentle. The bronco, the outlaw, the wild horse had to be broken to be ridden. Many of them hated the saddle, the bit, the rider, and would not tolerate them except when mastered. These horses had to be hurt to be subdued. Then there were cowboys, great horsemen, who never wanted any kind of a horse save one that would kick, bite, pitch. It was a kind of cowboy vanity. Panhandle Smith did not have it. He had broken bad horses and he had ridden outlaws, but because of his humanity he was not so great a horseman as he might have been. In almost every outfit where Pan had worked there had always been one cowboy, sometimes more, who could beat him riding.

Because of this genuine love for horses, the beautiful wild-horse panorama beneath Pan swelled his heart. He gazed and gazed. From near to far the bands dotted the green-gray valley. Far away this valley floor shaded into blue. Near at hand the colors were easily distinguishable. Blacks and bays, whites and chestnuts, pintos that resembled zebras dotted this wild pasture land. The closest band to where Pan and Blinky stood could not have been more than a mile distant, in a straight line. A shiny black stallion was the leader of this herd. He was acting strangely, too, trotting forward and halting, tossing his head and long black mane.

"Stallion!" exclaimed Pan, pointing. "What a jim-dandy horse! Blink, he has spotted us, sure as you're born. Talk about eyesight!"

"Wal, the broomtailed son-of-a-bronc!" drawled Blinky, tapping a cigarette against his palm. "Reckon, by gosh, you're correct."

"Blink, that's a wild stallion—a wonderful horse. I'll bet he's game and fast," protested Pan.

"Wal, you're safe to gamble on his bein' fast, anyways."

"Didn't you ever really care for a horse?" queried Pan.

"Me? Hell no! I've been kicked in the stummick—bit on the ear—piled onto the mud—drug in the dust too darn often."

"You'll admit, though, that there are some fine horses among these?" asked Pan earnestly.

"Wal, Pan, to stop kiddin' you, now an' then a fellar sees a real hoss among them broomies. But shore them boys are the hard ones to ketch."

The last of Blinky's remark forced Pan's observation upon the cardinally important point—the lay of the land. A million wild horses in sight would be of no marketable value if they could not be trapped. So he bent his keen gaze here and there, up and down the valley, across to the far side, and upon the steep wall near by.

"Blink, see that deep wash running down the valley? It looks a good deal closer to the far side. That's a break in the valley floor all right. It may be a wonderful help to us, and it may ruin our chances."

"Reckon we cain't tell much from heah. Thet's where the water runs, when there is any. Bet it's plumb dry now."

"We'll ride out presently and see. But I'm almost sure it's a deep wide wash, with steep walls. Impassable! And by golly, if that's so—you're a rich cowboy."

"Haw! Haw! Gosh, the way you sling words around."

"Now let's work along this ridge, down to the point where Dad went. Wasn't he funny?"

"He's shore full of ginger. Wal, I reckon he's perked up since you come."

Brush and cactus, jumbles of sharp rocks, thickets of scrub oak and dumps of dwarf cedars, all matted along the narrow hog-back, as Blinky called it, made progress slow and tedious. No cowboy ever climbed and walked so well as he rode. At length, however, Pan and Blinky arrived at the extreme end of the capelike bluff. It stood higher than their first lookout.

Pan, who arrived at a vantage point ahead of Blinky, let out a stentorian yell. Whereupon his companion came running.

"Hey, what's eatin' you?" he panted. "Rattlesnakes or wild hosses?"

"Look!" exclaimed Pan, waving his hand impressively.

The steep yellow slope opposite them, very close at the point where the bluff curved in, stretched away almost to the other side of the valley. Indeed it constituted the southern wall of the valley, and was broken only by the narrow pass below where the cowboys stood, and another wider break at the far end. From this point the wash that had puzzled Pan proved to be almost a canyon in dimensions. It kept to the lowest part of the valley floor and turned to run parallel with the slope.

"Blink, suppose we run a fence of cedars from the slope straight out to the wash. Reckon that's two miles and more. Then close up any gaps along this side of the valley. What would happen?" suggested Pan, with bright eyes on his comrade.

Blinky spat out his cigarette, a sign of unusual emotion for him.

"You doggone wild-hoss wrangler!" he ejaculated, with starting eyes and healthy grin. "Shore I begin to get your hunch. Honest, I never till this heah minnit thought so damn much of your idee. You shore gotta excuse me. A blind man could figger this deal heah.... Big corrals hid behind the gate under us—long fence out there to the wash—close up any holes on this side of valley—then make a humdinger of a drive.... Cowboy, shore's you're born I'm seein' my Arizona ranch right this minnit!"

"Reckon I'm seeing things too," agreed Pan in suppressed excitement. "I said once before it's too good to be true. Dad wasn't loco. No wonder he raved.... Blink, is there any mistake?"

"What about?"

"The market for wild horses."

"Absolutely, no," declared Blinky vehemently. "It's new. Only started last summer. Wiggate made money. He said so. Thet's what fetched the Hardmans nosin' into the game. Mebbe this summer will kill the bizness, but right now we're safe. We can sell all the hosses we can ketch, right heah on the hoof, without breakin' or drivin'. It's only a day's ride from Marco, less than thet over the hills the way we come. We can sell at Marco or we can drive to the railroad. I'd say sell at ten dollars a haid right heah an' whoop."

"I should smile," replied Pan. "It'll take us ten days or more, working like beavers to cut and drag the cedars to build that fence. More time if there are gaps to close along this side. Then all we've got to do is drive the valley. One day will do it. Why, I never saw or heard of such a trap. You can bet it will be driven only once. The wild horses we don't catch will steer clear of this valley. But breaking a big drove, or driving them to Marco—that'd be a job I'd rather dodge. It'd take a month, even with a small herd."

"Hardman an' Wiggate have several outfits working, mebbe fifty riders all told. They've been handlin' hosses. Reckon Wiggate would jump at buyin' up a thousand haid, all he could get. He's from St. Louis an' what he knows aboot wild hosses ain't a hell of a lot. I've talked with him."

"Blinky, old-timer, we've got the broomies sold. Now let's figure on catching them," replied Pan joyfully. "And we'll cut out a few of the best for ourselves."

"An' a couple fer our lady friends, hey, pard!" added Blinky, with violence of gesture and speech.

Down the steep slope, through brush and thickets, they slid like a couple of youngsters on a lark. Pan found the gateway between bluff and slope even more adaptable to his purposes than it had appeared from a distance. The whole lay of the land was miraculously advantageous to the drive and the proposed trap.

"Oh, it's too darn good," cried Pan, incredulously. "It'll be too easy. It makes me afraid."

"Thet somethin' unforeseen will happen, huh?" queried Blink, shrewdly. "I had the same idee."

"But what could happen?" asked Pan, darkly speculative.

"Wal, to figger the way things run fer me an' Gus out heah I'd say this," replied Blinky, with profound seriousness. "We'll do all the cuttin' an' draggin' an' buildin'. We close up any gaps. We'll work our selves till we're daid in our boots. Then we'll drive—drive them wild hosses as hosses was never drove before."

"Well, what then?" queried Pan sharply.

"Drive 'em right in heah where Hardman's outfit will be waitin'!"

"My God, man," flashed Pan hotly. "Such a thing couldn't happen."

"Wal, it just could," drawled Blinky, "an' we couldn't do a damn thing but fight."

"Fight?" repeated Pan passionately. The very thought of a contingency such as Blinky had suggested made the hot red blood film his eyes.

"Thet's what I said, pard," replied his comrade coolly. "An' it would be one hell of a fight, with all the best of numbers an' guns on Hardman's side. We've got only three rifles besides our guns, an' not much ammunition. I fetched all we had an' sent Gus for more. But Black didn't send thet over an' I forgot to go after it."

"We can send somebody back to Marco," said Pan broodingly. "Say, you've given me a shock. I never thought of such a possibility. I see now it could happen, but the chances are a thousand to one against it."

"Shore. It's hardly worth guessin' aboot. But there's thet one chance. An' we're both afeared of somethin' strange. All we can do, Pan, is gamble."

On the way back to camp, Pan, pondering very gravely over the question, at last decided that such a bold raid was a remote possibility, and that his and Blinky's subtle reaction to the thought came from their highly excited imaginations. The days of rustling cattle and stealing horses on a grand scale were gone into the past. Hardman's machinations back there in Marco were those of a crooked man who played safe. There was nothing big or bold about him, none of the earmarks of the old frontier rustler. Matthews was still less of a character to fear. Dick Hardman was a dissolute and depraved youth, scarcely to be considered. Purcell, perhaps, or others of like ilk, might have to be drawn upon sooner or later, but that being a personal encounter caused Pan no anxiety. Thus he allayed the doubts and misgivings that had been roused over Blinky's supposition.

"Let's see," he asked when he reached camp. "How many horses have we, all told?"

"Thirty-one, countin' the pack hosses, an' thet outlaw sorrel of yours," replied Blinky.

"Reckon we'll have to ride them all. Dragging cedars pulls a horse down."

"Some of 'em we cain't ride, leastways I cain't."

"Grab some ropes and nose bags, everybody, and we'll fetch the string into camp," ordered Pan.

In due time all the horses were ridden and driven back to camp, where a temporary corral had been roped off in a niche of the slope.

"Wal, fellars, it's find a hoss you haven't rid before," sang out Blinky, "an' everyone fer himself."

There was a stout, round-barreled buckskin that Pan's father had his eye on.

"Don't like his looks, Dad," warned Pan. "Say, Blink, how about this wormy-looking buck?"

"Wal, he's hell to get on, but there never was a better hoss wrapped up in thet much hide."

Pan caught him and led him out of the corral. Just as the horse stepped over the rope fence, which Pan held down, he plunged and made a break to get loose, dragging Pan at the end of a thirty-foot lasso. There was a lively tussle, which Pan finally won.

"Whoa, you bean-headed jasper," he yelled. "I'll ride you myself."

His father caught a brown bald-faced horse, nothing much to look at, that acted gentle enough until he was mounted. Then!—He arched his back, jumped up stiff legged, and began to pitch. Evidently Smith had been a horseman in his day. He stayed on.

"Hang on, Dad," yelled Pan in delight.

"Ride him, cowboy," shrieked Blinky.

Fortunately for Smith, the horse was not one of the fiery devilish species that would not be ridden. He straightened out presently and calmed down.

"He was goin' to pile me—shore," declared Smith.

Charley Brown caught a blue-gray, fine-looking horse, whose appearance, no doubt had attracted the miner; but he turned out to be a counterfeit, and Charley "bit the dust," as Blinky called it. Whereupon Charley had recourse to the animal he had ridden from Marco. Hurd showed he was a judge of horses and could ride. Blinky evidently was laboring under the urge that caused so much disaster among riders—he wanted to try a new horse. So he caught a jug-headed bay that did not look as if he could move out of his own way.

"Blink, you must be figuring on sleeping some?" inquired Pan.

"Humph! he'll walk back," snorted Gus. "I tried thet pack animal. He's hell fer breakfast."

"Gus, if I was goin' to walk I'd leave my saddle heah in camp," drawled Blinky.

"Blink, I'll let you ride in behind me," added Pan.

As a matter of fact, Pan was not having much luck propitiating the horse he had selected. Every time Pan would reach under for the cinch the horse would kick at him and throw off the saddle.

"Hey, Blink, come here," called Pan impatiently. "Hold this nice kind horse. What'd you call him?"

"Dunny," replied Blink. "An' he's a right shore enough good hoss.... I'll hold him."

Blinky grasped the cars of the horse but that did not work, so Pan roped his front feet. Blinky held the beast while Pan put the saddle on, but when he gave the cinch a pull Dunny stood up with a wild shriek and fell over backwards. He would have struck square on the saddle if Blinky had not pulled him sideways. Fortunately for Pan the horse rolled over to the right.

"Pan, turn that thing loose an' catch a horse you can get on," called his father.

"Don't worry, Dad. I'm ararin' to ride this bird."

"Pard, Dunny will be nice after you buckle down thet saddle an' get forked on him good," drawled Blinky, with his deceitful grin. "He's shore a broomie-chasin' devil."

Pan said: "Blink, I'll fool you in a minute... Hold him down now. Step on his nose." Pulling the right stirrup out from under the horse Pan drew the cinch a couple of holes tighter, and then straddled him.

"Let him up, Blink."

"All right, pard. Tell us where you want to be buried," replied Blinky, loosing the lasso and jumping free.

With a blast of rage Dunny got up. But he cunningly got up with his back first, head down between his legs, and stiff as a poker. He scattered the horses and whooping men, bucked over the campfire and the beds; then with long high leaps, he tore for the open.

"High, wide an' handsome," yelled Blinky, in a spasm of glee. "Ride him, you Texas cowpunchin' galoot! You'll shore be the first one who ever forked him fer keeps."

"Blink—if he—piles me—I'll lick you!" yelled back Pan.

"Lick nothin'," bawled Blinky, "you'll need a doctor."

But Pan stayed on that horse, which turned out to be the meanest and most violent bucker he had ever bestrode. Less powerful horses had thrown him. Eventually the plunging animal stopped, and Pan turned him back to camp.

"Wal, you son-of-a-gun!" ejaculated Blinky, in genuine admiration. "How'd you ever keep company with him?"

"Grin, you idiot," panted Pan, good humoredly. "Now men—we're ready to look the valley over. I'll take Dad with me. Blink, you and Gus turn the corner here and keep close under the slope all the way up the valley. Look out for places where the wild horses might climb out. Charley, you and Mac New cross to the other side of the valley, if you can. Look the ground over along that western wall. And everybody keep eyes peeled for wild horses, so we can get a line on numbers."

They rode out through the gateway into the valley, where they separated into pairs. Pan, with his father, headed south along the slope. He found distances somewhat greater than he had estimated from the bluff, and obstacles that he had not noted at all. But by traveling farther down he discovered a low ledge of rock, quite a wall in places, that zigzagged out from the slope for a goodly distance. It had breaks here and there which could easily be closed up with brush. This wall would serve very well for part of the fence, and from the end of it out to the wash there was comparatively level ground. Half a mile up the slope the cedars grew thickly, so that the material for the fence was easily accessible.

The wash proved to be a perpendicularly walled gorge fifty or more feet deep with a sandy dry floor. It wound somewhat west by north up the valley, and as far as he could see did not greatly differ in proportion from the point where the fence was to touch.

"Dad, there are likely to be side washes, or cuts up toward the head, where horses could get down," said Pan. "We'll fence right across here. So if we do chase any horses into the wash we'll stop them here. Sure, this long hole would make a great trap."

From that point they rode up the wash and gradually out into the middle of the valley. Bands of wild horses trooped away in the distance. Clouds of moving dust beyond the rolling ridges of the valley told of others in motion. They were pretty wild, considering that they had never been chased. At length Pan decided that many of these herds had come into this valley from other points nearer to Marco. Some bands stood on ridge tops, with heads erect, manes flying, wild and ragged, watching the two riders move along the wash.

Pan did not observe any evidence of water, but he hardly expected to find any in that wash. A very perceptible ascent in that direction explained the greater number of horses. The sage was stubby and rather scant near at hand, yet it lent the beautiful color that was so appreciable from a distance.

Intersecting washes were few and so deep and steep-walled that there need be no fear of horses going down them into the main wash. Out-croppings of rock were rare; the zone of cactus failed as the valley floor lost its desert properties; jack rabbits bounded away before the approach of the horses; a few lean gray coyotes trotted up to rises of ground, there to watch the intruders.

Pan had been deceived in his estimate of the size of the valley. They rode ten miles west before they began to get into rougher ground, scaly with broken rock, and gradually failing in vegetation. The notch of the west end loomed up, ragged and brushy, evidently a wild jumble of cliffs, ledges, timber and brush. The green patch at the foot meant water and willows. Pan left his father to watch from a high point while he rode on five miles farther. The ascent of the valley was like a bowl. The time came when he gazed back and down over the whole valley. Before him lines and dots of green, widely scattered, told of more places where water ran. Strings of horses moved to and fro, so far away that they were scarcely distinguishable. Beyond these points no horses could be seen. The wash wound like a black ribbon out of sight. The vast sloping lines of valley swept majestically down from the wooded bluff-like sides. It was an austere, gray hollow of the earth, with all depressions and ridges blending beautifully into the soft gray-green dotted surface.

Pan rode back to join his father.

"It's a big place, and we've got a big job on our hands," he remarked.

"While you was gone a band of two hundred or more run right under me, comin' from this side," replied Smith with beaming face. "Broomtails an' willowtails they may be, as those boys call them, but I'll tell you, son, some of them are mighty fine stock. The leader of this bunch had a brand on his flank. He was white an' I saw it plain. I'd shore like to own him."

"Dad, I'll bet we catch some good ones to take with us to Arizona. If we only had more time!"

"Pan, it'd pay us to work here all winter."

"You bet. But Dad, I—I want to take Lucy away from Marco," replied Pan hesitatingly. "When I let myself think, I'm worried. She's only a kid, and she might be scared or driven."

"Right, son," said Smith, soberly. "Those Hardmans would try anythin'."

"We'll stick to the original plan, and that's to make a quick hard drive—then rustle out of New Mexico."

When they rode into the gateway the day was far spent, and the west was darkly ablaze with subdued fire.

Pan's father showed his unfamiliarity with long horseback rides and he made sundry remarks, mirth provoking to his son.

"I'll make a cowboy and horse wrangler of you again," threatened Pan.

By the time Lying Juan had supper ready Blinky and Gus rode in camp.

"Hungrier'n a wolf," said Blinky.

"Well, what's the verdict?" asked Pan with a smile.

"Wuss an' more of it," drawled Blinky. "We seen most five thousand hosses, an' I'll be doggoned if I don't believe we'll ketch them all."

"You found this side of the valley a regular hole-proof wing for our trap, I'll bet," asserted Pan.

"Wal, there's places where hosses could climb out easy, but they won't try it," replied Blinky. "The valley slopes up long an' easy to the wall. But when we drive them hosses they'll keep down in the center, between the risin' ground an' thet wash. They'll run far past them places where they could climb out. I shore lose my breath whenever I think of what's comin' off. I reckon the valley is a made-to-order corral."

"Blink, you have some intelligence after all," replied Pan, chaffingly. "Did you see any sign of Brown and Mac New?"

"Not after we separated this mawnin'," returned Blinky. "An' thet reminds me, pard, I've got somethin' to tell you. This fellar Hurd—or Mac New as you call him—has a pocketful of gold coin."

"How do you know?" queried Pan bluntly.

"Gus kicked his coat this mawnin', over there where Mac New had his bed, an' a pile of gold eagles rolled out. Just by accident. Gus wanted somethin' or other. He was plumb surprised, an' he said Mac New was plumb flustered. Now what you make of thet?"

"By golly, Blink, I don't know. There's no reason why he shouldn't have some money, yet it strikes me queer. How much gold?"

"Aw, two or three hundred easy," rejoined Blinky. "It struck me sort of queer, too. I recollected thet he told us he'd only been doin' guard duty at the jail fer a couple of months. An' Gus recollected how not long before Mac New went to work he'd been a regular grub-line runner. We fed him heah, or Juan did. Now, pard, it may be all right an' then again it mayn't. Are you shore aboot him?"

"Blink, you make me see how I answer to some feeling that's not practical," returned Pan, much perturbed. "Mac was an outlaw in Montana. Maybe worse. Anyway I saved him one day from being strung up. That was on the Powder River, when I was riding for Hurley's X Y Z outfit. They were a hard lot. And Mac's guilt wasn't clear to me. Anyway, I got him out of a bad mess, on condition he'd leave the country."

"Ahuh! Wal, I see. But it's a shore gamble he's one of Hardman's outfit now, same as Purcell."

"Reckon he was. But he got fired."

"Thet's what he says."

"Blink, you advise me not to trust Mac New?" queried Pan dubiously.

"I ain't advisin' nobody. If you want my opinion, I'd say, now I know what you done fer Mac New, thet he wouldn't double-cross you. When it comes down under the skin there ain't much difference between outlaws an' other range men in a deal like thet."

"Well, I'll trust him just because of that feeling I can't explain," returned Pan.

He did not, however, forget the possible implication, and it hovered in his mind. It was after dark when Mac New and Brown rode into camp. Pan and the others were eating their supper.

"We had to ride clean to the end of the valley to cross that wash," said Brown. "It's rough country. Horses all down low. Didn't see so many, at that, until we rimmed around way up on this side."

"Fine. You couldn't have pleased me more," declared Pan. "Now Mac, what do you say?"

"About this heah hoss huntin'?" queried Mac New.

"Yes. Our prospects, I mean. You've chased wild horses."

"It'll be most as bad as stealin' hosses," replied the outlaw, laconically. "Easy work an' easy money."

"Say, you won't think it's easy work when you get to dragging cedars down that hill in the hot sun all day. I don't know anything harder."

Early next morning the labor began and proceeded with the utmost dispatch. The slope resounded with the ring of axes. Pan's father was a capital hand at chopping down trees, and he kept two horsemen dragging cedars at a lively rate. The work progressed rapidly, but the fence did not seem to grow in proportion.

As Pan dragged trees out to the sloping valley floor, raising a cloud of dust, he espied a stallion standing on the nearest ridge, half a mile away. How wild and curious!

"You better look sharp, you raw-boned sage eater!" called Pan.

Twice more this same horse evinced intelligent curiosity. Pan could not see any signs of a band with him. But other wild horses showed at different points, none however so close as this gray black-spotted stallion. Blinky was sure this horse had not always been wild. Manifestly he knew the ways of his archenemy, man.

With three cutters and three riders dragging cedars, allowing for a rest of an hour at noon the fence grew to a length of a quarter of a mile from the slope.

"Not so good," declared Pan, when they left off work for the day. "But that fence is high and thick. It will take an old stallion like that gray to break through it."

"Wal, my idee is thet we did grand," replied Blinky, wiping his sweaty face. "Besides all the choppin' and haulin' Gus found time to kill a deer."

It was a tired, sweaty and dust-begrimed party of hunters that descended upon Lying Juan for supper. After their hearty meal they gathered round the campfire to smoke and talk. This night Mac New joined the group, and though he had nothing to say he listened attentively and appeared to fit in more. Pan was aware of how the former outlaw watched him. The conversation, of course, centered round the plan and execution of work, and especially the wonderful drive they expected to make. If they could have at once started the drive, it would have been over and done with before their interest had time to grow intense. But the tremendous task of preparation ahead augmented the anticipation and thrill of that one day when they must ride like the wind.