."

Whereupon they fell into a great argument about the number of horses;
and though Pan had little part in it he gradually conceived an idea
that he had underestimated them.

"Say, fellows," he said, breaking up the discussion, "if Hardman's gang
raises a row in Marco we'll know tomorrow."

"Shore, but I tell you they won't," returned Blinky doggedly.

"We'll look for trouble anyway. And meanwhile we'll go right on with
our job. That'll be roping and hobbling the horses we want to keep.
We'll turn them loose here, or build another corral. Hey, Blink?--How
about a string for your ranch in Arizona?"

"_Whoopee!_" yelled the cowboy. Pan had heard Blinky yell that way
before. He clapped his hands over his ears, for no more mighty pealing
human sound than Blinky's famous yell ever rose to the skies. When Pan
took his hands away from his cars he caught the clapping echoes,
ringing, prolonged, back from bluff to slope, winding away, to mellow,
to soften, to die in beautiful concatenation far up in the wild breaks
of the hills.

Pan lay awake in his blankets. He had retired early leaving his
companions continuing their arguments, their conjectures and
speculations. The campfire flared up and died down, according to the
addition of new fuel. The light flickered on the trees in fantastic
and weird shadows. At length there was only a dull red glow left, and
quiet reigned. The men had sought their beds.

Then the solemn wilderness shut down on Pan, with the loneliness and
solitude and silence that he loved. But this night there were burdens.
He could not sleep. He could not keep his eyes shut. What question
shone down in the pitiless stars? Something strange and inscrutable
weighed upon him. Was it a regurgitation of his early moods, when
first he became victim to the wildness of the ranges? Was it new-born
conscience, stirred by his return to his mother, by his love for Lucy?
He seemed to be haunted. Reason told him that it was well he had come
to fight for his father. He could not be blamed for the machinations
of evil men. He suffered no regret, no remorse. Yet there was
something that he could not understand. It was a physical sensation
that gave him a chill creeping of his flesh. It was also a spiritual
shrinking, a withdrawing from what he knew not. He had to succumb to a
power of the unseen.

Other times he had felt the encroachment of this insidious thing, but
vague and raw. Whisky had be