"More than fifteen hundred," he soliloquized at last, breathing hard.

"Too good to be true! Yet there they are.... If only that ... well, no matter. I didn't force it. _I_ wasn't to blame... Maybe we can keep it from mother and Lucy."

Pan did not start back to camp until after nightfall, when he heard Blinky call.

"Say, you make a fellar nervous," declared Blinky, in relief, as Pan approached the bright campfire. "Wal, did you take a peep at 'em?"

"Yes. It's sure a roundup," replied Pan. "I'd say between fifteen and sixteen hundred head."

"Aw, you're just as locoed as any of us."

Whereupon they fell into a great argument about the number of horses; and though Pan had little part in it he gradually conceived an idea that he had underestimated them.

"Say, fellows," he said, breaking up the discussion, "if Hardman's gang raises a row in Marco we'll know tomorrow."

"Sh.o.r.e, but I tell you they won't," returned Blinky doggedly.

"We'll look for trouble anyway. And meanwhile we'll go right on with our job. That'll be roping and hobbling the horses we want to keep.

We'll turn them loose here, or build another corral. Hey, Blink?--How about a string for your ranch in Arizona?"

"_Whoopee!_" yelled the cowboy. Pan had heard Blinky yell that way before. He clapped his hands over his ears, for no more mighty pealing human sound than Blinky's famous yell ever rose to the skies. When Pan took his hands away from his cars he caught the clapping echoes, ringing, prolonged, back from bluff to slope, winding away, to mellow, to soften, to die in beautiful concatenation far up in the wild breaks of the hills.

Pan lay awake in his blankets. He had retired early leaving his companions continuing their arguments, their conjectures and speculations. The campfire flared up and died down, according to the addition of new fuel. The light flickered on the trees in fantastic and weird shadows. At length there was only a dull red glow left, and quiet reigned. The men had sought their beds.

Then the solemn wilderness shut down on Pan, with the loneliness and solitude and silence that he loved. But this night there were burdens.

He could not sleep. He could not keep his eyes shut. What question shone down in the pitiless stars? Something strange and inscrutable weighed upon him. Was it a regurgitation of his early moods, when first he became victim to the wildness of the ranges? Was it new-born conscience, stirred by his return to his mother, by his love for Lucy?

He seemed to be haunted. Reason told him that it was well he had come to fight for his father. He could not be blamed for the machinations of evil men. He suffered no regret, no remorse. Yet there was something that he could not understand. It was a physical sensation that gave him a chill creeping of his flesh. It was also a spiritual shrinking, a withdrawing from what he knew not. He had to succ.u.mb to a power of the unseen.

Other times he had felt the encroachment of this insidious thing, but vague and raw. Whisky had been a cure. Temptation was now strong upon him to seek his companions and dull his faculties with strong drink.

But he could not yield to that. Not now, with Lucy's face like a wraith floating in the starlight! He was conscious of a larger growth.

He had accepted responsibilities that long ago he should have taken up.

He now dreamed of love, home, children. Yet beautiful as was that dream it could not be realized in these days without the deadly spirit and violence to which he had just answered. That was the bitter anomaly.

Next morning, in the sweet cedar-tanged air and the rosy-gold of the sunrise, Pan was himself again, keen for the day.

"Pard, you get first pick of the wild hosses," announced Blinky.

"No, we'll share even," declared Pan.

"Say, boy, reckon we'd not had any hosses this mawnin' but fer you,"

rejoined his comrade. "An' some of us might not hev been so lively an'

full of joy. Look at your dad! Sh.o.r.e you'd never think thet yestiddy he had his haid broke an' his heart, too. Now just would you?"

"Well, Blink, now you call my attention to it, Dad does look quite chipper," observed Pan calmly. But he felt a deep gladness for this fact he so lightly mentioned.

Blinky bent to his ear: "Pard, it was the money thet perked him up,"

whispered the cowboy.

Pan reflected that his father's loss and continued poverty had certainly weakened him, dragged him down.

"Listen, Blink," said Pan earnestly. "I don't want to be a kill-joy.

Things do look wonderful for us. But I haven't dared yet to let myself go. You're a happy-go-lucky devil and Dad is past the age of fight.

It won't stay before his mind. But I feel fight. And I can't be gay because something tells me the fight isn't over."

"Wal, pard," drawled Blinky, with his rare grin, "the way I feel aboot fight is thet I ain't worryin' none if you're around.... All the same, old pard, I'll take your hunch, an' you can bet your life I'll be watchin' like a hawk till we shake the dirty dust of Marco."

"Good, Blinky, that will help me. We'll both keep our eyes open today so we can't be surprised by anybody."

Pan's father approached briskly, his face shining. He was indeed a different man. "Boys, are we goin' to loaf round camp all day?"

"No, Dad, we're going to rope the best of the broomtails. I'll get a chance to see you sling a la.s.so."

"Say, I'd tackle it at that," laughed his father.

"Blinky, trapping these wild horses and handling them are two different things," remarked Pan thoughtfully. "Reckon I'll have to pa.s.s the buck to you."

"Wal, pard, I'm sh.o.r.e there. We'll chase all the hosses into the big corral. Then we'll pick out one at a time, an' if we cain't rope him without scarin' the bunch too bad we'll chase him into the small corral."

"Ah-uh! All right. But I'll miss my guess if we don't have a hot dusty old time," replied Pan.

"Fellars," called Blinky, "come ararin' now, an' don't any of you fergit your guns."

"How about hobbles?" inquired Pan.

"I've got a lot of soft rope, an' some burlap strips."

Gus and Brown brought in the saddle horses, and soon the men were riding down to the corrals. This was a most satisfactory incident for all concerned, and there were none not keen and excited to see the wild horses, to pick and choose, and begin the day's work.

Upon their entrance to the first and smaller corral a string of lean, ragged, wild-eyed mustangs trooped with a clattering roar back into the larger corral.

"Wal, boys, the show begins," drawled Blinky. "Mr. Smith, you an'

Charley take your stands by the gate, to open it when you see us comin'

with a broomie we want to rope. An' Pan, you an' me an' Gus will ride around easy like, not pushin' the herd at all. They'll scatter an'

mill around till they're tired. Then they'll bunch. When we see one we want we'll cut him out, an' sh.o.r.e rope him if we get close enough.

But I reckon it'd be better to drive the one we want into the small corral, rope an' hobble him, an' turn him out into the pasture."

The larger corral was not by any means round or level, and it was so big that the ma.s.s of horses in a far corner did not appear to cover a hundredth part of the whole s.p.a.ce. There were horses all over the corral, along the fences especially, but the main bunch were as far away as they could get from their captors, and all faced forward, wild and expectant.

It was a magnificent sight. Whether or not there was much fine stock among them or even any, the fact remained that hundreds of wild horses together in one drove, captive and knowing it, were collected in this great trap. The intense vitality of them, the vivid coloring, the beautiful action of many and the statuesque immobility of the majority, were thrilling and all satisfying to the hearts of the captors.

Pan and Blinky and Gus spread out to trot their mounts across the intervening s.p.a.ce. The wild horses moved away along the fence, and halted to face about again. They let the riders approach to a hundred yards, then, with a trampling roar, they burst into action. Wild pointed noses, ears, heads, manes and flying hoofs and tails seemed to spread from a dark compact ma.s.s.

They ran to the other side of the corral, where the hors.e.m.e.n leisurely followed them. Again they broke into mighty concerted action and into thunder of hoofs. They performed this maneuver several times before the riders succeeded in scattering them all over the pasture. Then with wild horses running, trotting, walking, standing everywhere it was easy to distinguish one from another.

"Regular lot of broomtails," yelled Blinky to Pan. "Ain't seen any yet I'd give two bits fer. Reckon, as always, the good hosses got away."

But Pan inclined to the opinion that among so many there were surely a few fine animals. And so it proved. Pan's first choice was a blue roan, a rare combination of color, build and speed. The horse was a mare and had a good head. She had a brand on her left flank. Pan rode around after her, here, there, all over the field, but without help he could not turn her where he wished.

He had to watch her closely to keep from losing sight of her among so many moving horses, and he expected any moment that the boys would come to his a.s.sistance. But they did not. Whereupon Pan faced about, just in time to see a wonderful-looking animal shoot through the open gate into the smaller corral. Blinky and Gus rode after him.