Part 36 (1/2)

”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.”

”Sh.o.r.e, 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 succ.u.mb 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! Sh.o.r.e 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.