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 const.i.tuted the southern wall of the valley, and was broken only by the narrow pa.s.s 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with starting eyes and healthy grin. "Sh.o.r.e I begin to get your hunch. Honest, I never till this heah minnit thought so d.a.m.n much of your idee. You sh.o.r.e 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, sh.o.r.e'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 h.e.l.l 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 G.o.d, man," flashed Pan hotly. "Such a thing couldn't happen."

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

"Fight?" repeated Pan pa.s.sionately. 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 h.e.l.l 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."

"Sh.o.r.e. 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. d.i.c.k 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 h.e.l.l 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 la.s.so.

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--sh.o.r.e," 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.