Valley of Wild Horses Part 31

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 them 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 ma.s.sed behind, manes and tails flying, dust rolling from under their clattering hoofs.