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 succ.u.mbed 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 sh.o.r.e reminds me of somethin'," began Blinky impressively.

"Yea, hit sh.o.r.e 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 jacka.s.ses," 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.

"Sh.o.r.e 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 la.s.s more horse than I ever see on my life. I make tree tousand peso by my father's rancho."

"Juan, I pa.s.s," 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 l.u.s.tily 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 pa.s.sion 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 cla.s.ses: 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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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? h.e.l.l 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 sh.o.r.e 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. Impa.s.sable! 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 sh.o.r.e 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.