usly. "It's too good to be true."

"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. "We build a
corral round a water hole. Make a wide gate we can shut quick. Then
we lay out on moonlight nights waitin' for 'em to come in to drink.
We've done purty darn good at it, too."

"That's fun, but it's a two-bit way to catch wild horses," rejoined Pan.

"Wal, they're all doin' it thet way. Hardman's outfit, an' a couple
more besides us. I figgered myself it was purty slow, but no better
way come to me. Do you know one?"

"Do I? Well, I should smile. I know more than one that'll beat your
moonshining. Back on the prairie where it's all wide and bare there's
no chance for a small outfit. But this is high country, valleys,
canyons, cedars. Boys, we can make one big stake before the other
outfits get on to us."

"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.
He knew them. Warmhearted, simple, elemental, they responded in
different ways, but with the same fire. Gus Hans looked his
championship while Blinky raved and swore.

"Then you're both with me?" asked Pan, tersely. "Mind, it's no fair
deal, my getting your support here for helping you with a wild horse
drive."

"Fair, hell!" returned Blinky, forcibly. "It ain't like you to insult
cowboys."

"I'm begging your pardon," replied Pan, hastily. "But we'd never been
pardners and I hesitated to draw you into a scrap that'll almost sure
go to gun throwing."

"Wal, we're your pardners now, an' damn proud of it, Panhandle Smith."

Silently and grimly they all shook hands on it. Not half a dozen times
in his range life had Pan been party to a compact like that.

"This Blake fellar, now," began Blinky, as he lighted another
cigarette. "What's your idea of gettin' him out?"

"I w