by Grey, Zane
Blinky was the most obstreperously responsive to Pan's long harangue. Pan thought he understood the secret of the cowboy's strange elation. After all, what did Blinky care for horses or money? He had been a homeless wandering range rider, a hard-drinking reckless fellow with few friends, and those only for the hour of the length of a job. The success of this venture, if it turned out so, meant that Blinky would do the one big act of his life. He would take the girl Louise from her surroundings, give her a name that was honest and a love that was great, and rise or fall with her. Pan had belief in human nature. In endless ways his little acts of faith had borne fruit.
The hunters stayed up later than usual, and had to be reminded twice by Pan of the strenuous morrow.
When Pan made for his own bed Mac New followed him in the darkness.
"Smith, I'd like a word with you," said the outlaw, under his breath. His eyes gleamed out of his dark face.
"Sure, Mac, glad to hear you," replied Pan, not without a little shock.
"I've stuck on heah, haven't I?" queried Mac New.
"You sure have. I wouldn't ask a better worker. And if the drive is all I hope for, I'll double your money."
"Wal, I didn't come with you on my own hook," rejoined the other, hurriedly. "Leastways it wasn't my idee. Hardman got wind of your hoss-trappin' scheme. Thet was after he'd fired me without my wages. Then he sent fer me, an' he offered me gold to get a job with you an' keep him posted if you ketched any big bunch of hosses."
Here the outlaw clinked the gold coin in his coat pocket.
"I took the gold, an' said I'd do it," went on Mac New deliberately. "But I never meant to double-cross you, an' I haven't. Reckon I might have told you before. It jest didn't come, though, till tonight."
"Thanks, Mac," returned Pan, extending his hand to the outlaw. "I wasn't afraid to trust you... Hardman's playing a high hand, then?"
"Reckon he is, an' thet's a hunch."
"All right, Mac. I'm thinking you're square with me," replied Pan.
After the outlaw left, Pan sat on his bed pondering this latest aspect of the situation. Mac New's revelation was what Pan would have expected of such a character. Bad as he was, he seemed a white man compared with this underhanded greedy Hardman. Even granting Hardman's gradual degeneration, Pan could not bring himself to believe the man would attempt any open crooked deal. Still this attempt to bribe Mac New had a dubious look. Pan did not like it. If his wild horse expedition had not reached the last day he would have sent Blinky back to Marco or have gone himself to see if Hardman's riders could be located. But it was too late. Pan would not postpone the drive, come what might.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At last the cold night wind reminded Pan that he had not yet rolled in his blankets, which he had intended to do until Mac New's significant statement had roused somber misgiving. He went to bed, yet despite the exertions of the long day, slumber was a contrary thing that he could not woo.
He lay under the transparent roof of a makeshift shelter of boughs through which the stars showed white and brilliant. For ten years and more he had lain out on most nights under the open sky, with wind and rain and snow working their will on him, and the bright stars, like strange eyes, watching him. During the early years of his range life he used to watch the stars in return and wonder what was their message. And now, since his return home, he seemed so much closer to his beloved boyhood. Tonight the stars haunted him. Over the ridge tops a few miles, they were shining in the window of Lucy's tiny room, perhaps lighting her fair face. It seemed that these stars were telling him all was not well in Lucy's mind and heart. He could not shake the insidious vague haunting thought, and longed for dawn, so that in the sunlight he could dispel all morbid doubts and the shadows that came in the night.
So for hours he lay there, absorbed in mind. It was not so silent a night as usual. The horses were restless, as if some animal were prowling about. He could hear the sudden trampling of hoofs as a number of horses swiftly changed their location. The coyotes were in full chorus out in the valley. A cold wind fitfully stirred the branches, whipped across his face. One of his comrades, Blinky he thought, was snoring heavily.
Pan grew unaccountably full of dread of unknown things. His sensitive mind had magnified the menace hinted at by Mac New. It was a matter of feeling which no intelligent reasoning could dispel. Midnight came before he finally dropped into restless slumber.
At four o'clock Lying Juan called the men to get up. He had breakfast almost ready. With groans and grunts and curses the hunters rolled out, heavy with sleep, stiff of joints, vacant of mind. Blinky required two calls.
They ate in the cold gray dawn, silent and glum. A hot breakfast acted favorably upon their mental and physical make-ups, and some brisk action in catching and saddling horses brought them back to normal. Still there was not much time for talk.
The morning star was going down in an intense dark blue sky when the seven men rode out upon their long-planned drive. The valley was a great obscure void, gray, silent, betraying nothing of its treasure to the hunters. They crossed the wash below the fence, where they had dug entrance and exit, and turned west at a brisk trot. Daylight came lingeringly. The valley cleared of opaque light. Like a gentle rolling sea it swept away to west and north, divided by its thin dark line, and faintly dotted by bands of wild horses.
In the eastern sky, over the far low gap where the valley failed, the pink light deepened to rose, and then to red. A disk of golden fire tipped the bleak horizon. The whole country became transformed as if with life. The sun had risen on this memorable day for Pan Smith and his father, and for Blinky Somers. Nothing of the black shadows and doubts and fears of night! Pan could have laughed at himself in scorn. Here was the sunrise. How beautiful the valley! There were the wild horses grazing near and far, innumerable hundreds and thousands of them. The thought of the wonderful drive gripped Pan in thrilling fascination. Horses! Horses! Horses! The time, the scene, the impending ride called to him as nothing ever had. The thrilling capture of wild horses would alone have raised him to the heights. How much more tremendous, then, an issue that meant a chance of happiness for all his loved ones.
It was seven o'clock when Pan and his men reached the western elevation of the valley, something over a dozen miles from their fence and trap. From this vantage point Pan could sweep the whole country with far-sighted eyes. What he saw made them glisten.
Wild horses everywhere, like dots of brush on a bare green rolling prairie!
"Boys, we'll ride down the valley now and pick a place where we split to begin the drive," said Pan.
"Hosses way down there look to me like they was movin' this way," observed Blinky, who had eyes like a hawk.
Pan had keen eyes, too, but he did not believe his could compare with Blinky's. That worthy had the finest of all instruments of human vision—clear light-gray eyes, like that of an eagle. Dark eyes were not as far-seeing on range and desert as the gray or blue. And it was a fact that Pan had to ride down the valley a mile or more before he could detect a movement of wild horses toward him.
"Wal, reckon mebbe thet don't mean nothin'," said Blinky. "An' then agin mebbe it does. Hosses run around a lot of their own accord. An' agin they get scared of somethin'. If we run into some bunches haidin' this way we'll turn them back an' thet's work for us."
Pan called a halt there, and after sweeping his gaze over all the valley ahead, he said: "We split here.... Mac, you and Brown ride straight toward the slope. Mac, take a stand a half mile or so out. Brown, you go clear to the slope and build a fire so we can see your smoke. Give us five minutes, say, to see your smoke, and then start the drive. Reckon we'll hold our line all right till they get to charging us. And when we close in down there by the gate it'll be every man for himself. I'll bet it'll be a stampede."
Pan sent Lying Juan to take up a stand a mile or more outside of Mac New. Gus and Blinky were instructed to place equal distances between themselves and Juan. Pan's father left with the
m and rode to a ridge top in plain sight a mile away. Pan remained where he had reined his horse.
"Sort of work for them, even to Dad," soliloquized Pan, half amused at his own tremendous boyish eagerness. All his life he had dreamed of some such great experience with horses.
He could see about half of the valley floor which was to be driven. The other half lay over the rolling ridges and obscured by the haze and yellow clouds of dust rising here and there. Those dust clouds had not appeared until the last quarter of an hour or so, and they caused Pan curiosity that almost amounted to anxiety. Surely bands of horses were running.
Suddenly a shot rang out over to Pan's left. His father was waving hat and gun. Far over against the green background of slope curled up a thin column of blue smoke. Brown's signal! In a few moments the drive would be on.
Pan got off to tighten cinches.
"Well, Sorrel, old boy, you look fit for the drive," said Pan, patting the glossy neck. "But I'll bet you'll not be so slick and fat tonight."
When he got astride again he saw his father and the next driver heading their horses south. So he started Sorrel and the drive had begun. He waved his sombrero at his father. And he waved it in the direction of home, with a message to Lucy.
Pan rode at a trot. It was not easy to hold in Sorrel. He wanted to go. He scented the wild horses. He knew there was something afoot, and he had been given a long rest. Soon Pan was riding down into one of the shallow depressions, the hollows that gave the valley its resemblance to a ridged sea. Thus he lost sight of the foreground. When, half a mile below, he reached a wave crest of ground he saw bands of wild horses, enough to make a broken line half across the valley, traveling toward him. They had their heads north, and were moving prettily, probably a couple of miles distant. Beyond them other bands scattered and indistinct, but all in motion, convinced Pan that something had startled the horses, or they had sensed the drive.
"No difference now," shouted Pan aloud. "We're going to run your legs off, and catch a lot of you."
The long black line of horses did not keep intact. It broke into sections, and then into bands, most of which sheered to the left. But one herd of about twenty kept on toward Pan. He halted Sorrel. They came within a hundred yards before they stopped as if frozen. How plump and shiny they were! The lean wild heads and ears all stood up.
A mouse-colored mare was leading this bunch. She whistled shrilly, and then a big roan stallion trotted out from behind. He jumped as if he had been struck, and taking the lead swung to Pan's left, manifestly to get by him. But they had to run up hill while Pan had only to keep to a level. He turned them before they got halfway to a point even with the next driver. Away they swept, running wild, a beautiful sight, the roan and mare leading, with the others massed behind, manes and tails flying, dust rolling from under their clattering hoofs.
Then Pan turned ahead again, working back toward his place in the driving line. He had a better view here. He saw his father and Gus and Blinky ride toward each other to head off a scattered string of horses. The leaders were too swift for the drivers and got through the line, but most of the several herds were headed and turned. Gun shots helped to send them scurrying down the valley.
Two small bands of horses appeared coming west along the wash. Pan loped Sorrel across to intercept them. They were ragged and motley, altogether a score or more of the broomtails that had earned that unflattering epithet. They had no leader and showed it in their indecision. They were as wild as jack rabbits, and upon sighting Pan they wheeled in their tracks and fled like the wind, down the valley. Pan saw them turn a larger darker-colored herd. This feature was what he had mainly relied upon. Wonderful luck of this kind might attend the drive: even a broken line running the right way would sweep the valley from wash to slope. But that was too much for even Pan's most extravagant hopes.
Again he lost sight of the horses and his comrades, as he rode down a long swell of the valley sea. The slope ahead was long and gradual, and it mounted fairly high. Pan was keen to see the field from that vantage point. Still he did not hurry. Any moment a band of horses might appear, and he wanted always to have plenty of spare room to ride across to left or right. Once they got the lead of him or even with him it would be almost impossible to turn them.
Not, however, until he had surmounted the next ridge did he catch sight of any more wild horses. Then he faced several miles of almost level valley, with the only perceptible slope toward the left. For the first time he saw all the drivers. They were holding a fairly straight line. As Pan had anticipated, the drive was slowly leading away from the wash, diagonally toward the great basin that constituted the bottom of the valley floor. Bands of horses were running south, bobbing under the dust clouds. There were none within a mile of Pan. The other men, beyond the position of Pan's father, would soon be called upon to do some riding.
As Pan kept on at a fast trot, he watched in all directions, expecting to see horses come up out of a hollow or over a ridge; also he took a quick glance every now and then in the direction of his comrades. They were working ahead of him, more and more to the left. Therefore a wide gap soon separated Pan from his father.
This occasioned him uneasiness because they would soon be down on a level, where palls of dust threatened to close over the whole valley, and it would be impossible to see any considerable distance. If the wild horses then took a notion to wheel and run back up the valley the drive would yield great results.
Suddenly, way over close to the wash Pan espied a string of horses emerging from the thin haze of dust. He galloped down and across to intercept them. As he drew closer he was surprised to see they were in a dead run. These horses were unusually wild, as if they had been frightened. They appeared bent on running Pan down, and he had to resort to firing his gun to turn them. It was a heavy forty-five caliber, the report of which was loud. Then after they had veered, he had to race back across a good deal more than his territory to keep them from going round him.
At last they headed back into the dusty-curtained, black-streaked zone which constituted the bowl of the valley. This little race had warmed Sorrel. He had entered into the spirit of the drive. Pan found that the horse sighted wild horses more quickly than he, and wanted to chase them all.
Pan rode a mile to the left, somewhat up hill and also forward. He caught sight of his father, and two other riders, rather far ahead, riding, shooting either behind or in front of a waving pall of dust. The ground down there was dry, and though covered with grass and sage, it had equally as much bare surface, from which the plunging hoofs kicked up the yellow smoke.
Pan had a front of two miles and more to guard, and the distance was increasing every moment. The drive swept down to the left, massing toward the apex where the fence and slope met. This was still miles away. Pan could see landmarks he recognized, high up on the horizon. Many bands of horses were now in motion. They streaked to and fro across lighter places in the dust cloud. Pan wanted to stay out in the clear, so that he could see distinctly, but he was already behind his comrades. No horses were running up the wash. So he worked over toward where he had last observed his father, and gave up any attempt at further orderly driving.
It was plain that his comrades had soon broken the line. Probably in such a case, where so many horses were running, it was not possible to keep a uniform front. But Pan thought they could have done better. He saw strings of horses passing him to the left. They had broken through. This was to be expected. No doubt the main solid mass was now on a stampede toward the south.
Pan let stragglers and small bunches go by him. There were, however, no large bands of horses running back, at least that he could see. He rode to and fro, at a fast clip, across this dust-clouded basin, heading what horses happened to come near him. The melee of dust and animals thickened. He now heard the clip-clop of hoofs, here, there, everywhere, with the mass of sound to the fore. Presently he appeared surrounded by circles of dust and stringing horses. It was like a huge corral full of frightened
animals running wild through dust so thick that they could not be seen a hundred feet distant. Pan turned horses back, but he could not tell how quickly they would wheel again and elude him.
Once he thought he saw a rider on a white mount, yet could not be sure. Then he decided he was mistaken, for none of Blinky's horses were white.
This melee down in the dusty basin was bad. Driving was hampered by the obscurity. Pan could only hope the main line of wild horses was sweeping on as it had started.
After a long patrol in the dust and heat of that valley flat, Pan emerged, it seemed, into clearer atmosphere. He was working up. Horses were everywhere, and it was ridiculous to try to drive all those he encountered. At length there were none running back. All were heading across, to and fro, or down the valley. And when Pan reached the long ascent of that bowl he saw a magnificent spectacle.
A long black mass of horses was sweeping onward toward the gateway to the corrals, and to the fence. Dust columns, like smoke, curled up from behind them and swung low on the breeze. Pan saw riders behind them, and to the left. He had perhaps been the only one to go through that valley bowl. The many bands of horses, now converged into one great herd, had no doubt crossed it. They were fully four miles distant. Pan saw his opportunity to cut across and down to the right toward where the fence met the wash. If the horses swerved, as surely some or all of them would do, he could head them off. To that end he gave Sorrel free rein and had a splendid run of several miles to the point halfway between the fence and the wash.
Here from a high point of ground he observed the moving pace of dust and saw the black wheel-shaped mass of horses sweep down the valley like a storm. The spectacle was worth all the toil and time he had given, even if not one beast was captured. But Pan, with swelling heart and beaming eye, felt assured of greater success than he had hoped for. There were five thousand horses in that band, more by ten times than he had ever before seen driven. They could not all get through that narrow gateway to the corrals. Pan wondered how his few riders could have done so well. Luck! The topography of the valley! The wild horses took the lanes of least resistance; and the level or downhill ground favored a broad direct line toward the fence trap Pan and his men had contrived.