by Zane Grey
They ran to the other side of the corral, where the horsemen 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 assistance. 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.
The gate was closed, and then began a chase round the corral. The wild horse was at a disadvantage. He could not break through the fence or leap over it, and presently two lassoes caught him at once, one round his neck, the other his feet. As he went down, Pan heard the piercing shriek. The two cowboys were out of their saddles in a twinkling, and while Gus held the horse down Blinky hobbled his front feet. Then they let him get up. Charley Brown ran to open another gate, that led out into the unfenced pasture. This animal was a big chestnut, with tawny mane. He leaped prodigiously, though fettered by the hobbles. Then he plunged and fell and rolled over. He got up to try again. He was savage, grotesque, awkward. The boys drove him through the gate.
“Whoopee!” pealed out Blinky’s yell.
“Reckon those boys know their business,” soliloquized Pan, and then he yelled for them to come and help him.
It took some time for Pan to find his roan, but when he espied her, and pointed her out to Blinky and Gus the chase began. It was a leisurely performance. Pan did not run Sorrel once. They headed the roan off, hedged her in a triangle, cut her out from the other horses, and toward the open gate. When the mare saw this avenue of escape she bolted through it.
Pan, being the farthest from the gate, was the last to follow. And when he rode in, to head off the furiously running roan, Gus made a beautiful throw with his lasso, a whirling wide loop that seemed to shoot perpendicularly across in front of her. She ran into it, and the violent check brought her down. Blinky was almost waiting to kneel on her head. And Gus, leaping off, hobbled her front feet. Snorting wildly she got up and tried to leap. But she only fell. The boys roped her again and dragged her out into the pasture.
“Aw, I don’t know,” sang Blinky, happily. “Two horses in two minutes! We ain’t so bad, fer cowboys out of a job.”
Warming to the work they went back among the circling animals. But it was an hour before they cut out the next choice, a dark bay horse, inconspicuous among so many, but one that proved on close inspection to be the best yet. Gus had the credit of first espying this one.
After that the picked horses came faster, until by noon they had ten hobbled in the open pasture. Two of these were Pan’s. He had been hard to please.
“Wal, we’ll rest the hosses an’ go get some chuck,” suggested Blinky.
Early afternoon found them again hard at their task. The wild horses had not only grown tired from trooping around the corral, but also somewhat used to the riders. That made choosing and driving and cutting out considerably easier. Pan helped the boys with their choices, but he had bad luck with his own. He had espied several beautiful horses only to lose them in the throng of moving beasts. Sometimes, among a large bunch of galloping horses, the dust made vision difficult. But at length, more by good luck than management, Pan found one of those he wanted badly. It was a black stallion, medium size, with white face, and splendid proportions. Then he had to chase him, and do some hard riding to keep track of him. No doubt about his speed! Without heading him off or tricking him, not one of the riders could stay near him.
“Aw, I’m sick eatin’ his dust,” shouted Blinky, savagely.
Whereupon both Pan and Gus, inspired by Blinky, cut loose in dead earnest. They drove him, they relayed him, they cornered him, and then as he bolted to get between Gus and Pan, Blinky wheeled his horse and by a mighty effort headed him with a lasso. That time both wild stallion and lassoer bit the dust. Gus was on the spot in a twinkling, and as the animal heaved to his feet, it was only to fall into another loop. Then the relentless cowboys stretched him out and hobbled him.
“Heah, now, you fire-eyed — air-pawin’ hoss — go an’ get gentle,” panted Blinky.
By the time the hunters had caught three others, which achievement was more a matter of patience than violence, the herd had become pretty well wearied and tamed. They crowded into a mass and moved in a mass. It took some clever riding at considerable risk to spread them. Fine horses were few and far between.
“Let’s call it off,” shouted Pan. “I’m satisfied if you are.”
“Aw, just one more, pard,” implored Blinky. “I’ve had my eye on a little bay mare with four white feet. She’s got a V bar brand, and she’s not so wild.”
They had to break up the bunch a dozen times before they could locate the horse Blinky desired. And when Pan espied the bay he did not blame Blinky, and from that moment, as the chase went on, he grew more and more covetous. What a horse for Lucy! Pan had been satisfied with the blue roan for her but after he saw the little bay he changed his mind.
The little animal was cunning. She relied more on crowding in among the other horses than in running free, and therefore she was hard to get out into the open. Blinky’s mount went lame; Gus’s grew so weary that he could not keep up; but Pan’s Sorrel showed wonderful powers of endurance. In fact he got better all the time. It began to dawn upon Pan what a treasure he had in Sorrel.
“Aw, let the darn little smart filly go,” exclaimed Blinky, giving up in disgust. “I never wanted her nohow.”
“Cowboy, she’s been my horse ever since you showed her to me,” replied Pan. “But you didn’t know it.”
“Wal, you hoss-stealin’ son-of-a-gun!” ejaculated Blinky with pleasure. “If you want her, we shore will run her legs off.”
In the end they got Little Bay — as Pan had already named her — into the roping corral, along with two other horses that ran in with her. And there Pan chased her into a corner and threw a noose round her neck. She reared and snorted, but did not bolt.
“Hey, pard,” called Blinky, who was close behind. “Shore as you’re born she knows what a rope is. See! She ain’t fightin’ it. I’ll bet you my shirt she’s not been loose long. Thet bar V brand now. New outfit on me. Get off an’ haul up to her.”
Pan did not need a second suggestion. He was enraptured with the beauty of the little bay. She was glossy in spite of long hair and dust and sweat. Her nostrils were distended, her eyes wild, but she did not impress Pan as being ready to kill him. He took time. He talked to her. With infinite patience he closed up on her, inch by inch. And at last he got a hand on her neck. She flinched, she appeared about to plunge, but Pan’s gentle hand, his soothing voice kept her still. The brand on her flank was old. Pan had no way to guess how long she had been free, but he concluded not a great while, because she was not wild. He loosened the noose of his lasso on her neck. It required more patience and dexterity to hobble her.
“Pard, this little bay is fer your gurl, huh?” queried Blinky, leaning in his saddle.
“You guessed right, Blink,” answered Pan. “Little Bay! that’s her name.”
“Wal, now you got thet off your chest s’pose you climb on your hoss an’ look heah,” added Blinky.
The tone of his voice, the way he poi
nted over the cedar fence to the slope, caused Pan to leap into his saddle. In a moment his sweeping gaze caught horsemen and pack animals zigzagging down the trail.
“If it’s Hardman’s outfit, by Gawd, they’re comin’ back with nerve,” said Blinky. “But I never figgered they’d come.”
Pan cursed under his breath. How maddening to have his happy thoughts so rudely broken! In a flash he was hard and stern.
“Ride, Blink,” he replied briefly.
They called the others and hurriedly got out of the corral into the open.
“Reckon camp’s the best place to meet thet outfit, if they’re goin’ to meet us,” declared Blinky.
Pan’s father exploded in amazed fury.
“Cool off, Dad,” advised Pan. “No good to cuss. We’re in for something. And whatever it is, let’s be ready.”
They made their way back to camp with eyes ever on the zigzag trail where in openings among the cedars the horsemen could occasionally be seen.
“Looks like a long string,” muttered Pan.
“Shore, but they’re stretched out,” added Gus. “‘Pears to me if they meant bad for us they wouldn’t come pilin’ right down thet way.”
“Depends on how many in the outfit and what they know,” said Pan. “Hardman’s men sure knew we weren’t well heeled for a shooting scrape.”
“Pard, are you goin’ to let them ride right into camp?” queried Blinky, hard faced and keen.
“I guess not,” replied Pan bluntly. “Rifle shot is near enough. They might pretend to be friendly till they got to us. But we’ll sure fool them.”
Not much more was spoken until the approaching horsemen emerged from the cedars at the foot of the slope. They rode straight toward the camp.
“How many?” asked Pan. “I count six riders.”
“Seven fer me, an’ aboot as many pack horses...Wal, I’ll be damned! Thet’s all of them.”
“Mebbe there’s a bunch up on the slope,” suggested Charley Brown.
After a long interval fraught with anxiety and suspense, during which the horsemen approached steadily, growing more distinct, Blinky suddenly burst out: “Fellars, shore as you’re born it’s Wiggate.”
“The horse dealer from St. Louis!” ejaculated Pan in tremendous relief. “Blink, I believe you’re right. I never saw one of those men before, or the horses either.”
“It’s Wiggate, son,” corroborated Pan’s father. “I met him once. He’s a broad heavy man with a thin gray chin beard. That’s him.”
“Aw, hell!” exclaimed Blinky, regretfully. “There won’t be any fight after all.”
The approaching horsemen halted within earshot.
“Hi, there, camp,” called the leader, whose appearance tallied with Smith’s description.
“Hello,” replied Pan, striding out.
“Who’s boss here?”
“Reckon I am.”
“My name’s Wiggate,” replied the other loudly.
“All right, Mr. Wiggate,” returned Pan just as loud voiced. “What’s your business?”
“Friendly. Give my word. I want to talk horses.”
“Come on up, then.”
Whereupon the group of horsemen advanced, and presently rode in under the trees into camp. The foremost was a large man, rather florid, with deep-set eyes and scant gray beard. His skin, sunburned red instead of brown, did not suggest the westerner.
“Are you the younger Smith?” he asked, rather nervously eyeing Pan.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re in charge here?”
Pan nodded shortly. He sensed antagonism at least, in this man’s bluff front, but it might not have been animosity.
“Word come to me this morning that you’d trapped a large number of horses,” went on Wiggate. “I see that’s a fact. It’s a wonderful sight. Of course you expect to make a deal for them?”
“Yes. No trading. No percentage. I want cash. They’re a shade better stock than you’ve been buying around Marco. Better grass here, and they’ve not been chased lean.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. We disagree as to numbers. But I say close to fifteen hundred head.”
“Good Lord!” boomed the big man. “It’s a haul indeed...I’ll give you our regular price, twelve fifty, delivered in Marco.”
“No, thanks,” replied Pan.
“Thirteen.”
Pan shook his head.
“Well, young man, that’s the best offer made so far. What do you want?”
“I’ll sell for ten dollars a head, cash, and count and deliver them here tomorrow.”
“Sold!” snapped out Wiggate. “I can pay you tomorrow, but it’ll take another day to get my men out here.”
“Thank you — Mr. Wiggate,” replied Pan, suddenly rather halting in speech. “That’ll suit us.”
“May we pitch camp here?”
“Sure. Get down and come in. Plenty of water and wood. Turn your horses loose. They can’t get out.”
Pan had to get away then for a while from his father and the exuberant Blinky. How could they forget the dead men over there still unburied? Pan had read in Wiggate’s look and speech and in the faces of his men, that they had been told of the killing, and surely to the discredit of Pan and his followers. Pan vowed he would put Wiggate in possession of the facts. He gave himself some tasks, all the while trying to realize the truth. Fortune had smiled upon him and Blinky. Rich in one drive — at one fell swoop! It was unbelievable. The retrieving of his father’s losses, the new ranches in sunny Arizona, comfort and happiness for his mother, for Bobby and Alice — and for Lucy all that any reasonable woman could desire — these beautiful and sweet dreams had become possibilities. All the loneliness and privation of his hard life on the ranges had been made up for in a few short days. Pan’s eyes dimmed, and for a moment he was not quite sure of himself.
Later he mingled again with the men round the campfire. Some of the restraint had disappeared, at least in regard to Wiggate and his men toward everybody except Pan. That nettled him and at an opportune moment he confronted the horse buyer.
“How’d you learn about this drive of ours?” he asked, briefly.
“Hardman’s men rode in to Marco this morning,” replied Wiggate, coldly.
“Ah-uh! And they told a cock-and-bull story about what happened out here!” flashed Pan hotly.
“It placed you in a bad light, young man.”
“I reckon. Well, if you or any of your outfit or anybody else calls me a horse thief he wants to go for his gun. Do you understand that?”
“It’s pretty plain English,” replied Wiggate, manifestly concerned.
“And here’s some more. Jard Hardman was a horse thief,” went on Pan in rising passion. “He was a low-down yellow horse thief. He hired men to steal for him. And by God, he wasn’t half as white as the outlaw who killed him!”
“Outlaw? I declare — we — I — Do you mean you’re an—” floundered Wiggate. “We understood you killed Hardman.”
“Hell, no!” shouted Blinky, aflame with fury, bursting into the argument. “We was all there. We saw—”
“Blink, you keep out of this till I ask you to talk,” ordered Pan.
“Smith, I’d like to hear what he has to say.”
“Wiggate, you listen to me first,” rejoined Pan, with no lessening his intensity. “There are three dead men across the field, not yet buried. Hardman, his man Purcell, and the outlaw Mac New. He called himself Hurd. He was one of Hardman’s jailers there in Marco. But I knew Hurd as Mac New, back in Montana. I saved him from being hanged.”
Pan moistened lips too dry and too hot for his swift utterance, and then he told in stern brevity the true details of that triple killing. After concluding, with white face and sharp gesture, he indicated to his men that they were to corroborate his statement.
“Mr. Wiggate, it’s God’s truth,” spoke up Pan’s father, earnestly. “It was just retribution. Hardman robbed me years ago.”
“Wal, Mr. Wiggate, my say is thet it’ll be damned onhealthy fer anybody who doesn’t believe my pard,” added Blinky, in slow dark menace.
Gus stepped forward without any show of the excitement that characterized the others.
“If you need evidence other than our word, it’s easy to find,” he said. “Mac New’s gun was not the same caliber as Pan’s. An’ as the bullet thet killed Hardman is still in his body it can be found.”
“Gentlemen, that isn’t necessary,” replied Wiggate, hastily, with a shudder. “Not for me. But my men can substantiate it. That might sound well in Marco. For I believe that your young leader — Panhandle Smith, they call him — is not so black as he has been painted.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, while Pan was away for a few hours deer hunting, Wiggate’s men, accompanied by Blinky, attended to the gruesome detail of burying the dead men.
Upon Pan’s return he learned of this and experienced relief that Wiggate had taken the responsibility. Wiggate had addressed him several times, civilly enough, but there was a restraint that Pan sensed often in his encounter with men. They were usually men who did not understand westerners like himself.
Wiggate had all his men, except the one he had sent back to Marco, with several of Pan’s engaged in counting the captured wild horses. It was a difficult task and could hardly be accurate in short time.
“Anxious to get back to Marco?” queried Wiggate, not unkindly as he saw Pan’s restlessness.
“Yes, I am, now the job’s done,” replied Pan heartily.
“Well, I wouldn’t be in any hurry, if I were you,” said the horse dealer, bluntly.
“What do you mean?” queried Pan.
“Young Hardman is to be reckoned with.”
“Bah!” burst out Pan in a scorn that was rude, though he meant it for Hardman. “That pop-eyed skunk! What do I care for him?”