"Humph! he'll walk back," snorted Gus. "I tried thet pack animal.

He's h.e.l.l 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 la.s.so 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 sh.o.r.e 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 sh.o.r.e 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," a.s.serted 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 sh.o.r.e 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?"