gly. "Hope we can avoid it."

"Aw, we're turnin' over a new leaf, huh?" queried the cowboy in
strangest voice.

"You are, Blink," replied Pan with a frank, serious smile. "I've been
a respectable sober cowboy for some time. You've been terrible bad.'

"Who said so?" retorted Blinky, aggressively.

"I heard it at the Yellow Mine."

That name, and the implication conveyed by Pan made Blinky drop his
head. But his somber shame quickly fled.

"Wal, pard, I'll stay sober as long as you. Shake on it."

Pan made his plans to leave next morning as early as the wild horses
they had hobbled could be gotten into shape to travel. Wiggate
expected the riders he had sent for to arrive before noon the next day;
and it was his opinion that he would have all the horses he had
purchased out of there in a week. Pan and Blinky did not share this
opinion.

Wiggate and his men were invited to try one of Lying Juan's suppers,
which was so good that Juan had the offer of a new job. Upon being
urged by Pan to accept it, he did so.

"I can recommend Lying Juan as the best cook and most truthful man I
ever knew," remarked Pan.

Blinky rolled on the ground.

"Haw! Haw! Wait till Lyin' Juan tells you one of his whoppers."

"_Lying Juan_! I see. I was wondering about such a queer name for a
most honest man," replied Wiggate. "I know he's a capital cook. And I
guess I can risk the rest."

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. You ought to know that tieing the feet of wild horses is
sure enough work."

Next morning it was not yet daylight when Blinky drawled: "Wal,
cowboys, we've rolled out, wrangled the hosses, swallered some chuck,
an' now fer the hell!"

In the gray of dawn when the kindling east had begun to dwarf the glory
of the morning star, the cowboys drove all the hobbled horses into the
smaller corral. There they roped off a corner and hung a white
tarpaulin over the rope. This was an improvised second corral where
they would put the horses, one by one, as they tied up their feet.

Blinky and Gus made one unit to work together, and Pan, his father, and
Brown constituted another.

B