The two horses left, belonging to Hardman and Purcell, neighed loudly at being left behind, and pulled on their halters.

Pan’s quick eye caught sight of a rifle in a sheath on one of the saddles.  He ran to get it, but had to halt and approach the horse warily.  But he secured the rifle ­a Winchester ­fully loaded.

Blinky, observing Pan’s act, repeated it with the other horse.

“Pard, I ain’t figgerin’ they’ll fight, even from cover,” said Blinky.  “By gosh, this hoss must have been Purcell’s.  Shore.  Stirrups too long for Hardman.  An’ the saddle bag is full of shells.”

“Slip along the fence and see where they went,” replied Pan.

“Aw, I can lick the whole outfit now,” declared Blinky, recklessly.

“You keep out of sight,” ordered Pan.

Whereupon Blinky, growling something, crashed a way through the cedar fence and disappeared.

Pan hurriedly sheathed his gun, and with the rifle in hand, ran back to the overhanging bluff, where he began to climb through the brush.  Fierce action was necessary to him then.  He did not spare himself.  Forever he half-expected some kind of attack from the men who had been driven away.  Soon he had reached a point where he could work round to the side of the bluff.  When he looked out upon the valley he espied Hardman’s outfit two miles down the slope, beyond the cedar fence.  They had set fire to the cedars.  A column of yellow smoke rolled way across the valley.

“Ah-huh!  They’re rustling ­all right,” panted Pan.  “Wonder what ­kind of a story ­they’ll tell.  Looks to me ­like they’d better keep clear of Marco.”

Then a reaction set in upon Pan.  He crawled into the shade of some brush and stretched out, letting his tight muscles relax.  The terrible something released its hold on mind and heart.  He was sick.  He fought with himself until the spasm passed.

When he got back to his men, Blinky had just returned.

“Did you see them shakin’ up the dust?” queried Blinky.

“Yes, they’re gone.  Reckon we’ve no more to fear from them.”

“Huh!  We never had nothin’.  Shore was a yellow outfit.  They set fire to our fence, the ­ ­ !”

It took some effort for Pan to approach his father.  The feeling deep within him was inexplicable.  But, then, he had never before been compelled to face his father after a fight.  Pan’s relation to him seemed of long ago.

“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, 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 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.

“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 pointed 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.”