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"Wal, pard, I'm no wild hoss wrangler like you say you are, but I've got hoss sense," drawled Blinky, as he urged his animal back into the yellow trail. Pan dismounted to walk, a habit he had always conformed to on steep trails, when his horse needed freeing of a burden, and his own legs were the better for action.
"Who?" queried Pan, puzzled. "Why, your partner's wife." "Oh, Blinky! ... Gee, I'd clean forgot his right name," laughed Pan, mentally kicking himself. "She's still sound asleep. I told Blinky not to wake her. She looked white and worn out." "But she'll starve," interposed Lucy, with questioning eyes on Pan. Indeed their meaning had no relation to her words. "You men don't know anything.
"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?" "Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin' due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more." "'Course Sam can't pay it." "Certainly he can't.
"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."
After supper Pan and Blinky took great pains cutting and fixing the ropes which they intended to use on the wild horses that were to be taken along with them. "Wal, now thet's done, an' I reckon I'd write to my sweetheart, only I don't know nothin' to write aboot," said Blinky. "Go to bed," ordered Pan. "We've got to be up and at those horses by daylight.
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." The following morning, while Pan was away for a few hours deer hunting, Wiggate's men, accompanied by Blinky, attended to the gruesome detail of burying the dead men.
"Pan, I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles," protested Blinky. "Ask Gus. He seen them." "For onct Blinky ain't out of his haid," corroborated Hans. "Never saw so many wild hosses. An' if we can find a way to ketch some of them we'll be rich." "Boys, you told me you'd been trapping horses at the water holes," said Pan. "Shore, we've been moonshinin' them," replied Blinky.
That'll turn them toward the gate to the blind corrals. We'll close in there, and that'll take riding, my buckaroos!" 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?
Blinky held the beast while Pan put the saddle on, but when he gave the cinch a pull Dunny stood up with a wild shriek and fell over backwards. He would have struck square on the saddle if Blinky had not pulled him sideways. Fortunately for Pan the horse rolled over to the right. "Pan, turn that thing loose an' catch a horse you can get on," called his father. "Don't worry, Dad.
"By gosh, one's enough for us," declared Blinky. "Then we can shake this gold-claim country where they steal your empty tin cans an' broken shovels." "One haul will do me, too," agreed Pan. "Then Arizona for me." "Ah-uh!... Pan, how aboot this gurl?" Briefly then Pan told his story, and the situation as it looked to him at the moment. The response of these cowboys was what he had expected.
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