ve for Lucy Blake.

One summer night Pan was standing night-guard duty for his cowboy
comrade, who was enamored of the daughter of the rancher for whom they
worked. Jim was terribly in love, and closely pressed by a rival from
another outfit. This night was to be the crucial one.

Pan had to laugh at his friend. He was funny, he was pathetic, so
prone to be cast down one moment and the next raised aloft to the
skies, according to the whim of the capricious young lady. Many times
Pan had ridden and worked with a boy afflicted with a similar malady.

This night, however, Pan had been conscious of encroaching melancholy.
Perhaps it was a yearning for something he did not know how to define.

The night was strange, a sultry oppressive one, silent except for the
uneasy lowing of the herd, a rumble of thunder from the dark rolling
clouds. A weird yellow moon hung just above the horizon. The range
spread away dark, lonely and wild. No wind stirred. The wolves and
coyotes were quiet. All at once to Pan the whole world seemed empty.
It was an unaccountable feeling. The open range, the solitude, the
herd of cattle in his charge, the comrades asleep, the horses grazing
round their pickets--these always sufficient things suddenly lost their
magic potency. He divined at length that he was homesick. And by the
time the lay watch was ended he had determined to quit his job and ride
home.

CHAPTER FIVE

On his way home Panhandle Smith rode across the old Limestone range
that had been the scene of his first cowboy activities. It had not
changed, although the cattle were not so numerous. Familiar as
yesterday were the bogholes, where he and his partner--what was that
cow-puncher's name?--had spent so many toilsome days and nights.

Pan made camp on the rocky ford where a brook joined the Limestone. It
was thirty miles to Littleton, farther to Las Animas, and his pack
horse was tired. He cooked his meager meal, and unrolled his bed, and
as on many a hundred other nights he lay down under the open sky. But
his wakefulness was new. He could not get to sleep for long. The
nearer he got home the stranger and deeper his thoughts.

Moving on next day he kept sharp lookout among the cattle for his
father's brand. But he saw no sign of it. At length, toward sunset,
after passing thousands of cattle, he concluded in surprise that his
father's stock no longer ran this range. Too many homesteads and
fences! He r