"Mawnin', pardner," drawled Blinky. "Sh.o.r.e 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, pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 gra.s.s 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.

"Sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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'. Sh.o.r.e 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 n.o.ble 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. Gra.s.s 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 b.u.t.tress 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, gra.s.s, 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 la.s.soes," 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-a.s.sumed 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 circ.u.mstance 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 d.a.m.n good horse to Queen Victorie. I can tell you myself Queen Victorie is a fine little woman I ever seen on my life.