by Grey, Zane
"How are you, Dad?" he asked with constraint.
"Little shaky—I guess—son," came the husky reply. But Smith got up and removed his hand from the bloody wound on his forehead. It was more of a bruise than a cut, but the flesh was broken and swollen.
"Nasty bump, Dad. I'll bet you'll have a headache. Go to camp and bathe it in cold water. Then get Juan to bandage it."
"All right," replied his father. He forced himself to look up at Pan. His eyes were warming out of deep strange shadows of pain, of horror. "Son, I—I was kind of dazed when—when you—the fight come off.... I heard the shots, but I didn't see... Was it you who—who killed Jard Hardman?"
"No, Dad," replied Pan, placing a steady hand on his father's shoulder. Indeed he seemed more than physically shaken. "But I meant to."
"Then how—who?—" choked Smith.
"Mac New shot him," replied Pan, hurriedly. "Hardman accused him of double-crossing me. Mac called him. I think Hardman tried to draw. But Mac killed him.... I got Purcell too late to save Mac."
"Awful!" replied Smith, hoarsely.
"Pan, I seen Purcell's eyes," spoke up Blinky. "Shore he meant to drop Mac an' you in two shots. But he wasn't quite previous enough."
"I was—too slow myself," rejoined Pan haltingly. "Mac New was an outlaw, but he was white compared to Hardman."
"Wal, it's all over. Let's kinda get set back in our saddles," drawled Blinky. "What'll we do with them stiffs?"
"By George, that's a stumper," replied Pan, sitting down in the shade.
"Huh! Reckon you figger we ought to pack them back to Marco an' give them church services," said Blinky, in disgust. "Jest a couple of two-bit rustlers!"
"Somebody will come out here after their bodies, surely. Dick Hardman would want to—"
"Mebbe someone will, but not thet hombre," declared Blinky. "But I'm gamblin' Hardman's outfit won't break their necks tellin' aboot this. Now you jest see."
"Well, let's wait, then," replied Pan. "Wrap them up in tarps and lay them here in the shade."
The trapped wild horses, cracking their hoofs and whistling in the huge corrals, did not at the moment attract Pan or wean him away from the deep unsettled condition of mind. As he passed the corral on the way to the camp the horses moved with a trampling roar. The sound helped him toward gaining a hold on his normal self.
The hour now was near sunset and the heat of day had passed. A cool light breeze made soft low sound in the trees.
Pan found his father sitting with bandaged head beside the campfire, apparently recovering somewhat.
"Did you take a peep at our hosses?" he asked.
"No, not yet," replied Pan. "I reckon I will, though, before it gets dark."
"We've got a big job ahead."
"That depends, Dad. If we can sell them here we haven't any job to speak of. How about it, Blink?"
"How aboot what?" inquired the cowboy, who had just come up.
"Dad's worrying over what he thinks will be a big job. Handling the horses we've caught."
"Shore thet all depends. If we sell heah, fine an' dandy. The other fellar will have the hell. Reckon, though, we want to cut out a string of the best hosses fer ourselves. Thet's work, when you've got a big drove millin' round. Shore is lucky we built thet mile-round corral. There's water an' feed enough to last them broomies a week, or longer on a pinch."
While they were talking Gus and Charley Brown returned to camp. They were leading the horses that had been ridden by Hardman and Purcell.
"Turn them loose, boys," directed Pan, to whom they looked for instructions.
Presently Gus handed Pan a heavy leather wallet and a huge roll of greenbacks.
"Found the wallet on Purcell an' the roll on Hardman," said Gus.
"Wal, they shore was well heeled," drawled Blinky.
"But what'll I do with all this?" queried Pan blankly.
"Pan, as you seem to forget, Hardman owed your dad money, reckon you might rustle an' hunt up Dick Hardman an' give it to him. Say, Dick'll own the Yellow Mine now. Gee! He could spend all this in his own joint."
"Dad, you never told me how much Hardman did you out of," Pan.
"Ten thousand in cash, an' Lord only knows how many cattle."
"So much! I'd imagined.... Say, Dad, will you take this money?"
"Yes, if it's honest an' regular for me to do so," replied Smith stoutly.
"Regular? There's no law in Marco. We've got to make our own laws. Let it be a matter of conscience. Boys, this man Hardman ruined my father. I heard that from a reliable source at Littleton before I ever got here. Don't you think it honest for Dad to take this money?"
"Shore, it's more than thet," replied Blinky. "I'd call it justice. If you turned thet money over to law in Marco it'd go to Matthews. An' you can bet your socks he'd keep it."
The consensus of opinion did not differ materially from Blinky's.
"Dad, it's a long trail that has no turning," said Pan, tossing both wallet and roll to his father. "Here's to your new ranch in Arizona!"
Lying Juan soon called them to supper. It was not the usual cheery meal, though Juan told an unusually atrocious lie, and Blinky made several attempts to be funny. The sudden terrible catastrophe of the day did not quickly release its somber grip.
After supper, however, there seemed to be a lessening of restraint, with the conversation turning to the corrals full of wild horses.
"Wal, let's go an' look 'em over," proposed Blinky.
Pan was glad to see his father able and eager to accompany them, but he did not go himself.
"Come on, you wild-hoss trapper," called Blinky. "We want to bet on how rich we are."
"I'll come, presently," replied Pan.
He did not join them, however, but made his way along the north slope to a high point where he could look down into the second corral. It was indeed a sight to fill his heart—that wide mile-round grassy pasture so colorful with its droves of wild horses. Black predominated, but there were countless whites, reds, bays, grays, pintos. He saw a blue roan that shone among the duller horses, too far away to enable Pan to judge of his other points. Pan gazed with stern restraint, trying to estimate the numbers without wild guess of enthusiasm.
"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."
"Shore, 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, accord
ing 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 succumb 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! Shore 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 lasso."
"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 pass the buck to you."
"Wal, pard, I'm shore 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' shore 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 mass of horses in a far corner did not appear to cover a hundredth part of the whole space. 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 space. 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 mass.
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.
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nbsp; "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.