Part 32 (1/2)

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 antic.i.p.ated, the drive was slowly leading away from the wash, diagonally toward the great basin that const.i.tuted 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 const.i.tuted 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 gra.s.s 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, ma.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing him to the left. They had broken through. This was to be expected. No doubt the main solid ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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.

”Looks like Dad and all the rest of them have swung round on this side,” soliloquized Pan, straining his eyes.

That was good, but Pan could not understand how they had ever accomplished it. Perhaps they had been keen enough to see that the wild horses would now have to go through the gateway or turn south along the fence.

Pan watched eagerly. Whatever was going to happen must come very soon, as swiftly as those fast wild horses could run another mile. He saw them sweep down on the bluff and round it, and then begin to spread, to disintegrate. Again dust clouds settled over one place. It was in the apex. What a vortex of furious horses must be there! Pan lost sight of them for some moments. Then out of the yellow curtain streaked black strings, traveling down the fence toward Pan, across the valley, back up the way they had come. Pan let out a stentorian yell of victory. He knew the action indicated that the horses had poured in a ma.s.s into the apex between bluff and fence.

”_Whoopee!_” yelled Pan, to relieve his surcharged emotions. ”It's a sure bet we've got a bunch!”