One night, hours after dark, the stage rolled into Marco, with Pan one of five pa.s.sengers. Sunset had overtaken them miles from their destination. At that time Pan thought the country wild and beautiful in the extreme. Darkness had soon blotted out the strange formations of colored rocks, the endless sweep of valley, the cold white peaks in the far distance.

Marco! How unusual the swelling of his heart! The long three-week ride had ended. The stage had rolled down a main street the like of which Pan had never even imagined. It was crude, rough, garish with lights and stark board fronts of buildings, and a motley jostling crowd of men; women, too, were not wanting in the throngs streaming up and down. Again it was Sat.u.r.day night. Always it appeared Pan hit town on this of all nights. Noise and dust filled the air. Pan pulled down his bag, and mounted the board steps of the hotel the stage driver had announced.

If Pan had not been keenly strung, after long weeks, with the thought of soon seeing his mother, father, his little sister and Lucy, he would yet have been excited over this adventure beyond the Rockies.

Contrary to his usual habit of throwing his money to the winds like most cowboys, he had exercised rigid economy on this trip. Indeed, it was the first time he had ever done such a thing. He had between four and five hundred dollars, consisting of wages he had saved and the proceeds from the sale of his horses and outfit. There was no telling in what difficulties he might find his father and what need there might be for his money. So Pan took cheap lodgings, and patronized a restaurant kept by a Chinaman.

He chose a table at which sat a young man whose face and hands and clothes told of rough life in the open in contact with elemental things. Pan could catch such significance as quickly as he could the points of a horse. He belonged to that fraternity himself.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, indicating the vacant chair.

"Help yourself, stranger," was the reply, accompanied by an appraising glance from level quiet eyes.

"I'm sure hungry. How's the chuck here?" went on Pan, seating himself.

"The c.h.i.n.k is a first rate cook an' clean.... Just come to town?"

"Yes," replied Pan, and after giving his order to a boy waiter he turned to his companion across the table and continued. "And it took a darn long ride to get here. From Texas."

"That so? Well, I come from western Kansas, just across the Texas line."

"Been here long?"

"Reckon a matter of six months."

"What's your work, if you'll excuse curiosity. I'm green, you see, and want to know."

"I've been workin' a minin' claim. Gold."

"Ah-huh!" replied Pan with quickened interest. "Sounds awful good to me. I never saw any gold but a few gold eagles, and they've sure been scarce enough."

Pan's frankness, and that something simple and careless about him, combined with his appearance, always created the best of impressions upon men.

His companion grinned across the table, as if he had shared Pan's experience. "Reckon you needn't tell me you're a cowpuncher. I heard you comin' before I saw you.... My name's Brown."

"Howdy, glad to meet you," replied Pan, and then with evident hesitation. "Mine is Smith."

"Panhandle Smith?" queried the other, quickly.

"Why, sure," returned Pan with a laugh.

"Shake," was all the reply Brown made, except to extend a lean strong hand.

"I'm most as lucky as I am unlucky," said Pan warmly. "It's a small world.... Now tell me, Brown, have you seen or heard anything of my dad, Bill Smith?"

"No, sorry to say. But I haven't mingled much. Been layin' pretty low, because the fact is I think I've struck a rich claim. An' it's made me cautious."

"Ah-uh. Pretty wide open town, I'll bet. I appreciate your confidence in me."

"To tell you the truth I'm darn glad to run into some one from near home. Lord, I wish you could have brought word from my wife an' baby."

"Married, and got a kid. That's fine. Boy or girl?"

"It's a girl. I never saw her, as she was born after I left home. My wife wasn't very well when she wrote last. She wants to come out here, but I can't see that yet a while."

"Well, wish I could have brought you news. It must be tough to be separated from your family. I'm not married, but I know what a little girl means.... Say, Brown, did you ever run into a man out here named Jim Blake?"

"No."

"Or a man named Hardman? Jard Hardman?"

"Hardman! Now you're talkin', Panhandle. I should smile I have,"

replied Brown, with a flash of quiet eyes that Pan had learned to recognize as dangerous in men. His own pulse heightened. It was like coming suddenly on a track for which he had long been searching. The one word Hardman had struck fire from this young miner.

"What's Hardman doing?" asked Pan quietly.

"Everythin' an' between you an' me, he's doin' everybody. Jard Hardman is in everythin'. Minin', ranchin', an' I've heard he's gone in for this wild horse chasin'. That's the newest boom around Marco. But Hardman has big interests here in town. It's rumored he's back of the Yellow Mine, the biggest saloon an' gamblin' h.e.l.l in town."

"Well, I'll be doggoned," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Pan thoughtfully. "Things turn out funny. You can show me that place presently. Does Hardman hang out here in Marco?"

"Part of the time. He travels to Frisco, Salt Lake, an' St. Louis where he sells cattle an' horses. He has a big ranch out here in the valley, an' stays there some. His son runs the outfit."

"His son?" queried Pan, suddenly hot with a flash of memory.

"Yes, his son," declared Brown eyeing Pan earnestly. "Reckon you must know d.i.c.k Hardman?"

"I used to--long ago," replied Pan, pondering. How far in the past that seemed! How vivid now in memory!

"Old Hardman makes the money an' d.i.c.k blows it in," went on Brown, with something of contempt in his voice. "d.i.c.k plays, an' they say he's a rotten gambler. He drinks like a fish, too. I don't run around much in this burg, believe me, but I see d.i.c.k often. I heard he'd fetched a girl here from Frisco."

"Ah-uh! Well, that's enough about my old schoolmate, thank you,"

rejoined Pan. "Tell me, Brown, what's this Marco town anyway?"

"Well, it's both old an' new," replied the other. "That's about all, I reckon. Findin' gold an' silver out in the hills has made a boom this last year or so. That's what fetched me. The town is twice the size it was when I saw it first, an' many times more people. There's a lot of these people, riffraff, that work these minin' towns. Gamblers, sharks, claim jumpers, outlaws, adventurers, tramps, an' of course the kind of women that go along with them. A good many cow outfits make this their headquarters now. An' last, this horse tradin', an' wild horse catchin'. Sellin' an' shippin' has attracted lots of men. Every day or so a new fellar, like you, drops in from east of the Rockies.

There are some big mining men investigatin' the claims. An' if good mineral is found Marco will be solid, an' not just a mushroom town."

"Any law?" inquired Pan thoughtfully.

"Not so you'd notice it much, especially when you need it," a.s.serted Brown grimly. "Matthews is the town marshal. Self-elected so far as I could see. An' he's hand an' glove with Hardman. He's mayor, magistrate, sheriff, an' the whole caboodle, includin' the court. But there are substantial men here, who sooner or later will organize an'

do things. They're too darned busy now workin', gettin' on their feet."

"Ah-uh. I savvy. I reckon you're giving me a hunch that in your private opinion Matthews isn't exactly straight where some interests are concerned. Hardman's for instance. I've run across that sort of deal in half a dozen towns."

"You got me," replied Brown, soberly. "But please regard that as my confidential opinion. I couldn't prove it. This town hasn't grown up to political corruption an' graft. But it's headed that way."

"Well, I was lucky to run into you," said Pan with satisfaction. "I'll tell you why some other time. I'm pretty sure to stick here.... Now let's go out and see the town, especially the Yellow Mine."

Pan had not strolled the length of the main street before he realized that there was an atmosphere here strangely unfamiliar to him. Yet he had visited some fairly wild and wide-open towns. But they had owed their wildness and excitement and atmosphere to the range and the omnipresent cowboy. Old-timers had told him stories of Abilene and Dodge, when they were in their heyday. He had gambled in the h.e.l.ls of Juarez, across the Texas border where there was no law. Some of the Montana cattle towns were far from slow, in cowboy vernacular. But here he sensed a new element. And soon he grasped it as the fever of the rush for gold. The excitement of it took hold of him, so that he had to reason with himself to shake it off.