ile or so out.
Brown, you go clear to the slope and build a fire so we can see your
smoke. Give us five minutes, say, to see your smoke, and then start
the drive. Reckon we'll hold our line all right till they get to
charging us. And when we close in down there by the gate it'll be
every man for himself. I'll bet it'll be a stampede."

Pan sent Lying Juan to take up a stand a mile or more outside of Mac
New. Gus and Blinky were instructed to place equal distances between
themselves and Juan. Pan's father left with them and rode to a ridge
top in plain sight a mile away. Pan remained where he had reined his
horse.

"Sort of work for them, even to Dad," soliloquized Pan, half amused at
his own tremendous boyish eagerness. All his life he had dreamed of
some such great experience with horses.

He could see about half of the valley floor which was to be driven.
The other half lay over the rolling ridges and obscured by the haze and
yellow clouds of dust rising here and there. Those dust clouds had not
appeared until the last quarter of an hour or so, and they caused Pan
curiosity that almost amounted to anxiety. Surely bands of horses were
running.

Suddenly a shot rang out over to Pan's left. His father was waving hat
and gun. Far over against the green background of slope curled up a
thin column of blue smoke. Brown's signal! In a few moments the drive
would be on.

Pan got off to tighten cinches.

"Well, Sorrel, old boy, you look fit for the drive," said Pan, patting
the glossy neck. "But I'll bet you'll not be so slick and fat tonight."

When he got astride again he saw his father and the next driver heading
their horses south. So he started Sorrel and the drive had begun. He
waved his sombrero at his father. And he waved it in the direction of
home, with a message to Lucy.

Pan rode at a trot. It was not easy to hold in Sorrel. He wanted to
go. He scented the wild horses. He knew there was something afoot,
and he had been given a long rest. Soon Pan was riding down into one
of the shallow depressions, the hollows that gave the valley its
resemblance to a ridged sea. Thus he lost sight of the foreground.
When, half a mile below, he reached a wave crest of ground he saw bands
of wild horses, enough to make a broken line half across the valley,
traveling toward him. They had their heads north, and were moving
prettily, probably a couple of miles distant. Beyond them other bands
scatter