Valley of Wild Horses E-Book

Zane Grey

• Herausgeber: anamsaleem
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

American writer Zane Grey was an innovative early voice in the establishment of the Western genre. The novel Valley of Wild Horses follows rowdy protagonist Panhandle Smith as he confronts corruption in a small town. Packed with plenty of adventure, conflict, and romance, this book is a must-read for Zane Grey fans.

Leseprobe

Valley of Wild Horses

Zane Grey

.

CHAPTER ONE

The Panhandle was a lonely purple range land, unfenced and wind swept. Bill Smith, cattleman, threw up a cabin and looked at the future with hopeful eyes. One day while plowing almost out of sight of his little home--which that morning he had left apprehensively owing to an impending event--he espied his wife Margaret coming along the edge of the plowed field. She had brought his lunch this day, despite his order to the contrary. Bill dropped the loop of his driving reins over the plow handle and strode toward her. Presently she halted wearily and sat down where the dark rich overturned earth met the line of bleached grass. Bill meant to scold Margaret for bringing his lunch, but it developed she had brought him something more. A son!

This boy was born on the fragrant fresh soil, out on the open prairie, under the steely sun and the cool wind from off the Llano Estacado. He came into the world protesting against this primitive manner of his birth. Bill often related that the youngster arrived squalling and showed that his lung capacity fitted his unusual size. Despite the mother's protestations, Bill insisted on calling the lad Panhandle.

Panhandle's first memory was of climbing into the big cupboard in the cabin, falling out upon his head and getting blood all over his white dress. His next adventurous experience was that of chewing tobacco he found in his father's coat. This made him very sick. His mother thought he was poisoned, and as Bill was away, she ran to the nearest neighbors for help. By the time she returned with the experienced neighbor woman Panhandle had gotten rid of the tobacco and was bent upon further conquest.

Another day Panhandle manifested a growing tendency toward self-assertion. He ran away from home. Owing to his short legs and scant breath he did not get very far down over the slope. His will and intention were tremendous. Did the dim desert call to the child? His parents had often seen him stand gazing into the purple distance. But Panhandle on this runaway occasion fell asleep on the dry grassy bottom of an irrigation ditch. Bye and bye he was missed, and father and mother, and the farm hands ran hither and thither in wild search for him. No one, however, found him. In the haste of the search some one left his work at the irrigation dam, and the water running down rudely awoke the child out of his dreams. Wet and bedraggled, squalling at the top of his lungs, Panhandle trudged back home to the relief of a distracted mother.

"Doggone it," ejaculated Bill to his neighbors. "That kid's goin' to be just like me. I never could stay home."

A year later Bill Smith sold his farm and moved farther west in Texas, where he took up a homestead, and divided his time between that and work on a big irrigating canal which was being constructed.

Panhandle now lived on a ranch and it was far lonelier than his first home, because his father was away so much of the time. At first the nearest neighbor was Panhandle's uncle, who lived two long prairie miles away. His house was a black dot on the horizon, not unattainable, it seemed to Panhandle, but very far away. He would have risked the distance, save for his mother, who was very timid in this country so new to her. Panhandle would never forget how she was frightened at a crazy wanderer who happened to come along, and another time by some drunken Mexican laborers.

Panhandle undoubtedly had an adventuring soul. One day he discovered that a skunk had dug a hole under the front porch and had given birth to her kittens there. Panhandle was not afraid of them, and neither hurt nor frightened them. After a time he made playmates of them, and was one day hugely enjoying himself with them when his mother found him. She was frightened, enraged and horrified all at once. She entreated Panhandle to let the dirty little skunks alone. Panhandle would promise and then forget. His mother punished him, all to no avail. Then she adopted harsher measures.

Homesteaders had located near by and Mrs. Smith called on them, in the hope that she could hire a cowboy or ranch hand to come over and destroy the skunks. It chanced there was no one but a Mrs. Hardman and her only boy. His name was Dick. He was seven years old, large for his age, a bold handsome lad with red hair. Mrs. Smith made a bargain with Dick, and led him back with her.

Here Panhandle took violent exception to having his pets killed or routed out by this boy he had never before seen. He did not like his looks anyway. But Dick paid little heed to Panhandle, except once when Mrs. Smith went into the house, and then he knocked Panhandle down. For once Panhandle did not squall. He got up, round eyed, pale, with his hands clenched. He never said a word. Something was born in the depths of his gentle soul then.

Dick tore a hole in the little wall of rocks that supported the porch, and with a lighted torch on a stick he wormed his way in to rout out the skunks.

Panhandle suddenly was thrilled and frightened by a bellowing from Dick. The boy came hurriedly backing out of the hole. He fetched an odor with him that nearly suffocated Panhandle, so strange and raw and terrible was it. Dick's eyes were shut. For the time being he had been blinded. He bounced around like a chicken with its head cut off, bawling wildly.

What had happened Panhandle did not know, but it certainly suited him. "Goody! Goody!" he shouted, holding his nose, and edging away from the lad.

Then Panhandle saw smoke issuing from the hole under the porch. The mother skunk and her kittens scampered out into the weeds. He heard the crackle of flames. That boy had dropped his torch under the porch. Screaming, Panhandle ran to alarm his mother. But it was too late. There were no men near at hand, so nothing could be done. Panhandle stood crying beside his mother, watching their little home burn to the ground. Somehow in his mind the boy, Dick, had been to blame. Panhandle peered round to find him, but he was gone. Never would Panhandle forget that boy.

They walked to the uncle's house and spent the night there. Soon another home was under construction on the same site. It was more of a shack than a house, for building materials were scarce, and the near approach of winter made hasty construction imperative. Winter came soon, and Panhandle and his mother were alone. It was cold and they huddled over the little wood fire. They had plenty to eat, but were very uncomfortable in the one-room shack. Bill Smith came home but seldom. That fall the valley had been overrun with homesteaders, "nesters," they were called, and these newcomers passed by often from the town drunk and rough.

Panhandle used to lie awake a good deal. During these lonely hours the moan of the prairie wind, the mourn of wolves and yelp of coyotes became part of his existence. He understood why his mother barred and blocked the one door, placed the ax by the bed and the gun under her pillow. Even then he longed for the time when he would be old and big enough to protect her.

The lonely winter, with its innumerable hours of solitude for Mrs. Smith and the boy, had incalculable influence upon his character. She taught him much, ways and things, words and feelings that became an integral part of his life.

At last the long winter ended. With spring came the gales of wind which, though no longer cold, were terrible in their violence. Many a night Panhandle lay awake, shrinking beside his mother, fearing the shack would blow away over their heads. Many a day the sun was obscured, and nothing could be cooked, no work done while the dust storm raged.

As spring advanced, with a lessening of the tornadoes, a new and fascinating game came into Panhandle's life. It was to sit at the one little window and watch the cowboys ride by. How he came to worship them! They were on their way to the spring roundups. His father had told him all about them. Panhandle would strain his eyes to get a first glimpse of them, to count the shaggy prancing horses, the lithe supple riders with their great sombreros, their bright scarfs, guns and chaps, and boots and spurs. Their lassos! How they fascinated Panhandle! Ropes to whirl and throw at a running steer! That was a game he resolved to play when he grew up. And his mother, discovering his interest, made him a little reata and taught him how to throw it, how to make loops and knots. She told him how her people had owned horses, thrown lassos, run cattle.

Panhandle was always watching for the cowboys. When they passed by he would run to the other side of the shack where there was a knothole stuffed with a rag, and through this he would peep until he was blinded by dust. These were full days for the lad, rousing in him wonder and awe, eagerness and fear--strange longings for he knew not what.

Then one day his father brought home a black pony with three white feet and a white spot on his face. Panhandle was in rapture. For him! He could have burst for very joy, but he could not speak. It developed that his mother would not let him ride the pony except when she led it. This roused as great a grief as possession was joy. A beautiful little pony he could not ride! Ideas formed in his mind, scintillated and grew into dark purpose.

One day he stole Curly, and led him out of sight behind the barn, and mounting him rode down to the spring. Panhandle found himself alone. He was free. He was on the back of a horse. Mighty and incalculable fact!

Curly felt the spirit of that occasion. After drinking at the spring he broke into a lope. Panhandle stuck on somehow and turned the pony toward the house. Curly loped faster. Panhandle felt the wind in his hair. He bounced up and down. Squealing with delight he twisted his hands in the flowing mane and held on. At the top of the hill his joy became divided by fear. Curly kept on loping down the hill toward the house. Faster and faster! Panhandle bounced higher and higher, up on his neck, back on his haunches, until suddenly his hold broke and he was thrown. Down he went with a thud. It jarred him so he could hardly get up, and he reeled dizzily. There stood his mother, white of face, reproachful of eye. "Oh mama--I ain't hurt!" he cried.

Bill Smith was approached about this and listened, stroking his lean chin, while the mother eloquently enlarged upon the lad's guilt.

"Wal, wife, let the boy ride," he replied. "He's a nervy kid. I named him well. He'll make a great cowboy. Panhandle Smith. Pan, for short!"

Pan heard that and his heart beat high. How he loved his dad then! "Cowboy" meant one of the great riders of the range. He would be one. Thereafter he lived on the back of Curly. He learned to ride, to stick on like a burr, to keep his seat on the bare back of the pony, to move with him as he moved. One day Pan was riding home from his uncle's, and coming to a level stretch of ground he urged Curly to his topmost speed. The wind stung him, the motion exhilarated him, controlling the pony awoke and fixed some strange feeling in him. He was a cowboy. Suddenly Curly put a speeding foot into a prairie-dog hole. Something happened. Pan felt himself jerked loose and shot through the air. He struck the ground and all went black. When he came to, he found he had plowed the soft earth with his face, skinned nose and chin, but was not badly hurt. That was his first great spill. It sobered him. Curly waited for him a little way farther on and he was lame. Pan knew he could not hide the evidences of his rashness, so he decided to tell the truth.

Pan encountered his father at the barn.

"Say, you bloody cowpuncher," demanded his parent, "did he pitch with you?"

"No, Dad," replied Pan, with effort. "I runned him fast."

"Ah--huh, so I see," went on the father; and after a searching look over the boy he fell to examining the pony.

Pan emboldened by what his father had called him went straight to his mother. She screamed at sight of him, and that struck Pan to the heart. "Aw, mama, it ain't nuthin'. I'm just a bloody cowpuncher."

Pan was not quite six years old when he rode to his first roundup, which occurred that summer early in June. His glory in the experience was marred by shame because he had to appear before all these cowboys without a saddle on his horse. He had feared just exactly what happened.

"Wal, heah comes the Ridin' Kid from Loco Range," said one, edging near to Pan, with a smile on his shining red face.

"Sonny, yo're forkin' a grand hoss, but you forgot to saddle him," remarked another, with a twinkle of gray eyes.

"Fellars, this heah is Panhandle Smith, kid of the homesteader, over by the river. I heerd Pan's a trick bareback rider."

These genial fiery young men, lithe and tall and round limbed, breathing the life and spirit of the range, crowded round Pan, proving that there never was a cowboy who did not like youngsters.

"Say kid, I'll swap saddles with you," spoke up the one who had first addressed him.

Pan's heart was palpitating. How could they know how beautiful and wonderful they looked to him? If it had not been that he was riding Curly bareback! They were making fun of him. Tears were not far from his eyes.

"Young fellar, I'll bet this nag of yourn can't run fast enough to ketch cold," spoke up another.

"I'll bet he kin," added a third.

"Pan, do this to them," put in the cowboy who appeared to know him, and suiting act to word he placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his finger. "Do that, Pan. That'll shore shut them up."

Pan found himself impelled to do as he was bidden, which action raised a howl of mirth from the cowboys.

And so at that early age Panhandle Smith was initiated into the hilarity and trickery and spirit common to these carefree riders of the ranges.

When the roundup began he found that he was far from forgotten.

"Come on, Pan," shouted one. "Ride in heah an' help me.... Turn 'em back, kid."

Pan rode like the wind, breathless and radiant, beside himself with bliss.

Then another rider would yell to him: "Charge him, cowboy. Fetch him back."

And Pan, scarcely knowing what he was doing, saw with wild eyes how the yearling or calf would seem to be driven by him. There was always a cowboy near him, riding fast, yet close, yelling to him, making him a part of the roundup.

At the noon hour an older man, no doubt the rancher who owned the cattle, called off the work. A lusty voice from somewhere yelled: "Come an' git it!"

The rancher, espying Pan, rode over to him and said: "Stranger, did you fetch your chuck with you?"

"No--sir," faltered Pan. "My mama--said for me to hurry back."

"Wal, you stay an' eat with me," replied the man, kindly. "Shore them varmints might stampede an' we'd need you powerful bad."

Pan sat next this big black-eyed man, in the circle of hungry cowboys. They made no more fun of Pan. He was one of them. Hard indeed was it for him to sit cross-legged, after the fashion of cowboys, with a steady plate upon his knees. But he had no trouble disposing of the juicy beefsteak and boiled potatoes and beans and hot biscuits that Tex, the boss, piled upon his plate.

After dinner the cowboys resumed work.

"Stand heah by the fire, kid," said Tex.

Then Pan saw a calf being dragged across the ground. A mounted cowboy held the rope.

"The brand!" he yelled.

Pan stood there trembling while one of the flankers went down the tight rope to catch the bawling, leaping calf. Its eyes stood out, it foamed at the mouth. The flanker threw it over his leg on its back with feet sticking up. A brander with white iron leaped close. The calf bellowed. There was a sizzling of hair, a white smoke, the odor of burned hide, all of which sickened Pan.

Then one of the cowboys came to him: "Reckon thet's yore mammy come for you."

He lifted Pan up on Curly and led the pony away from the roundup, out in the open where Pan espied his mother, eager and anxious with her big dark eyes strained.

"Beg pardon, lady," spoke up the cowboy, touching his sombrero. "It's our fault yore boy stayed so long. We're sorry if you worried. Please don't blame him. He's shore a game kid an' will make a grand cowboy some day." 

CHAPTER TWO

So this was how Panhandle Smith, at the mature age of five, received the stimulus that set the current of his life in one strong channel. He called himself "Tex." If his mother forgot to use this thrilling name he was offended. He adopted Tex's way of walking, riding, talking. And all the hours of daylight, outdoors or indoors, he played roundup. Stones, chips, nails--anything served for cattle--and he had a special wooden image of himself and horse. Much of this time he spent on the back of Curly, in the corral or the field, rounding up an imaginary herd. At night his dreams were full of cowboys, chuck wagons, pitching horses and bawling steers.

Every new sight of a snaky slim cowpuncher on a racy horse intensified this impression in Pan's mind, stamped the future more vividly on his heart. It was what he had been born to.

One by one pioneers came in their covered wagons to this promising range and took up homesteads of one hundred and sixty acres each. Some of these men, like Pan's father, had to work part of the time away from home, to earn much-needed money.

Jim Blake, the latest of these incoming settlers, had chosen a site down in a deep swale that Pan always crossed when he went to visit his uncle. It was a pretty place, with grass and cottonwoods, and a thin stream of water, a lonesome and hidden spot which other homesteaders had passed by.

Pan met Jim one day and rode with him. He was a young man, pleasant and jolly, a farmer and would-be rancher, without any of the signs of cowboy about him. Pan thought this a great detriment, but he managed to like Jim and loftily acquainted him with his achievements on Curly.

One day Pan saw Jim's wife, a pretty blonde girl, strong and healthy and rosy cheeked. Her sleeves were rolled up showing round bare arms. Her smile won Pan, yet he was too shy to go in and take the cookies she offered.

Autumn days came, dull and gray, with cold wind sweeping the plain, and threatening clouds lodging against the mountain peaks. Another winter was coming. Pan hated the thought. Snow, ice, piercing winds would prevent him from riding Curly. With this fact pressing closer he rode as much as his mother would let him and some more besides.

His father and mother wanted him to go with them to the settlement one Saturday. They were taking the wagon in for winter supplies. Pan's yearning for adventure almost persuaded him, but he preferred to stay with Curly. His mother demurred, but his father said he might remain at home.

"Pan, you can ride over to Uncle George's with some things. But be careful not to get caught in a storm."

Thus it came about that Pan found himself alone for the first time in his life, master of himself, free to act as he chose. And he did not choose to go at once to Uncle George's. His uncle was nice, but did not accord Pan the freedom that he craved. So what with one and another of his important cowboy tasks the hours flew and it was late before he got started across the prairie toward his uncle's homestead.

Pan never needed an excuse to ride fast, but now he had one that justified him. The two miles would not take long. He would have to hurry back, for indeed it looked as if a storm were sweeping down from the black peaks. Pan realized that he should have gotten his errand done earlier in the day.

The cold wind stung his face and made his eyes water. Curly loped at his easy swift stride over the well-trodden trail. The bleached grass waved, the tumbleweeds rolled along the brown ground. There was no sun. All the west was draped in drab clouds. Soon Pan was riding down into the swale where Blake lived. The cottonwoods were almost bare. Only a few yellow leaves clung to the branches, and every moment a leaf fluttered down. Here in this swale Pan caught the autumn smells, dank and woody.

Once across the swale he put his pony to a gallop and soon reached Uncle George's homestead. No one at home! The horse and wagon were gone. Pan left his package and turned back. As he trotted past the Blake gate Pan heard a faint call. It startled him. Reining in Curly he listened and looked. Blake's cabin stood back out of sight among the Cottonwoods. The barn, however, with its low open-sided shed, stood just inside the gate. The cows had been brought in for milking. A lusty calf was trying to steal milk from its mother. Chickens were going to roost. Pan did not believe that any of these had made the call. He was about to ride on by when suddenly he again caught a strange cry that appeared to come from the barn or shed. It excited rather than frightened him. Sliding off Curly he pushed open the big board gate and ran in.

Under the open shed he found Mrs. Blake lying on some hay which evidently she had just pulled down from the loft. When she saw Pan her pale convulsed face changed somehow. "Oh--thank God!" she cried.

"Are you hurted?" asked Pan in hurried sympathy. "Did you fall out of the haymow?"

"No, but I'm in terrible pain."

"Aw--you're sick?"

"Yes. And I'm alone. Will you please--go for your mother?"

"Mama an' Daddy went to town," replied Pan in distress. "An' nobody's home at Uncle George's."

"Then you must be a brave little man and help me."

Bill Smith hurrying homeward with his wife and Jim Blake were belated by the storm. It was midnight when they arrived at Bill's house. They found Curly with bridle hanging, standing in the snow beside the barn. Mrs. Smith was distracted. Bill and Jim, though worried, did not fear the worst. But with lanterns they set out upon the tracks Curly had left in the snow. Bill's wife would not remain behind.

Soon they arrived at Blake's homestead, though the pony tracks became difficult to follow and found Pan wide awake, huddled beside the cow, true to the trust that had been given him. Mrs. Blake was not in bad condition, considering the circumstances, nor was the baby. It was a girl, whom Jim named Lucy right then and there, after his wife.

The men carried the mother and her babe up to the house, while Mrs. Smith followed with the now sleepy Pan. They built fires in the open grate, and in the kitchen stove, and left Mrs. Smith to attend to the mother. Both women heard the men talking. But Pan never heard, for he had been put to bed in a corner, rolled in blankets.

"Doggone my hide!" exclaimed Bill. "Never seen the beat of that kid of mine!"

"Mebbe Pan saved both their lives, God bless him," replied Blake with emotion.

"Quien sabe? It might be.... Wal, strange things happen. Jim, that kid of mine was born right out on the plowed field. An' here comes your kid--born in the cowshed on the hay!" 

"It is strange," mused Blake, "though we ought to look for such happenin's out in this great west."

"Wal, Pan an' Lucy couldn't have a better birthright. It ought to settle them two kids for life."

"You mean grow up an' marry some day? Now that would be fine. Shake on it, Bill."

Pan asleep in the corner of the other room and Lucy wailing at her mother's breast were pledged to each other by their fathers.

The winter passed for Pan much as had the preceding one, except that he had more comfort to play his everlasting game of roundup.

"When will Lucy be big enough to play with me?" he often asked. The strange little baby girl had never passed from his mind, though he had never seen her. She seemed to form the third link in his memory of the forging of his life. Curly--the cowboys--and Lucy! He did not know how to reconcile her with the other two. But those three events stood out above the blur of the past.

At last the snow melted, the prairie took on a sheen of green, the tree burst into bud, and birds returned to sing once more. All of this was beautiful, but insignificant beside Curly. He was fatter and friskier than ever.

Pan's father came home once or twice a month that spring, always arriving late and leaving at an early hour. How Pan longed for his father's coming!

Then there came the fourth epoch in Pan's life. His father brought him a saddle. It was far from new, of Mexican make, covered with rawhide, and had an enormous shiny horn. Pan loved it almost as much as he loved Curly; and when it was not on the pony it adorned the fence or a chair, always with Pan astride it, acting like Tex.

The fifth, and surely the greatest event in Pan's rapidly developing career, though he did not know it then, was when his mother took him over to see his baby, Lucy Blake. It appeared that the parents in both homesteads playfully called her "Pan's baby." That did not displease Pan, but it made him singularly shy. So it was long before his mother could get him to make the acquaintance of his protégée.

Pan's first sight of Lucy was when she crawled over the floor to get to him. How vastly different she really was from the picture he recalled of a moving bundle wrapped in a towel! She was quite big and very wonderful. She was dressed in a little white dress. Her feet and legs were chubby. She had tiny pink hands. Her face was like a wild rose dotted with two violets for eyes. And her hair was spun gold. Marvelous as were all these things they were as nothing to the light of her smile. Pan's shyness vanished, and he sat on the floor to play with her. He produced little chips and pebbles, and stones, with which he played roundup. Lucy grew most gratifyingly interested in Pan's game, but she made it hard for him to play it, and also embarrassing, by clinging with most tenacious and unshakable grip to his finger.

Every Sunday that summer the Smiths visited at the homestead of the Blakes. They became fast friends. Bill and Jim discussed the cattle business. The mothers sewed and talked hopefully of the future. Pan never missed one of these Sunday visits, and the time came when he rode over on his own account. Lucy was the most satisfactory cowgirl in all the world. She did not object to his being Tex. She tried her best to call him Tex. And she crawled after him and toddled after him with unfailing worship. The grown folks looked on and smiled.

Meanwhile the weeks and months passed, the number of homesteaders increased, more and more cattle dotted the range. When winter came some of the homesteaders, including Pan and his mother, moved into Littleton to send their children to school.

Pan's first teacher was Emma Jones. He liked her immediately which was when she called to take him to school. Pan was not used to strangers. The men in the streets, the grown boys all bothered him. Cowboys were scarce, and that was a great disappointment to Pan. It lowered Littleton in his estimation.

It developed that Pan was left handed. Now Miss Jones considered it wrong for anyone to write with his left hand so she tied Pan's fast to the desk, and made him practice letters with his right. What a dreary unprofitable time Pan had of it! So many little boys and girls confused him, though he was not backward in making acquaintance. But he wanted Curly and the prairie. He would rather be with Lucy. Most of all he wanted the cowboys.

Dick Hardman came again into Pan's life, fatefully, inevitably, as if the future had settled something inscrutable and sinister, and childhood days, school days, days of youth and manhood had been inextricably planned before they were born. Dick was in a higher grade and made the fact known to Pan. He had grown into a large boy, handsomer, bolder, with a mop of red hair that shone like a flame. He called Pan "the little skunk tamer," and incited other boys to ridicule. So the buried resentment in Pan's depths smoldered and burst into blaze again, and found fuel to burn it into hate. He told his mother what Dick had got the boys to call him. Then he was indeed surprised to see his sweet soft-eyed mother give way to quick-flashing passion. Somehow this leap of her temper strengthened Pan in his resentment. He had her blood, her fire, her pride, though he was only a child.

Then the endless school days were over for a while. Summer had come. Pan moved back to the beloved homestead, to the open ranges, to Curly and Lucy. Only she had changed. She could stand at his knee and call him Tex. He resumed his old games with her, and in time graduated her to a seat on the back of Curly. If she had not already unconsciously filled his heart that picture of her laughing and unafraid would have done so.

Another uncle had moved into the country to take up a homestead. Pan now had a second place to ride to, farther away, over a wilder bit of range, and much to his liking. He saw cowboys every time he rode there.

One day while Pan was at this new uncle's, a dreadful thing happened--his first real tragedy. Some cowboy left the slide door of the granary open. Curly got in there at the wheat. Before it became known he ate enormously and then drank copiously. It foundered him. It killed him.

When Pan came out of his stupefaction to realize his actual loss he was heartbroken. He could not be consoled. Hours he spent crying over his saddle. Not for a long time did he go to see little Lucy. His father could not afford to buy him another horse then and indeed it was a long time before he did get one.

Days and weeks passed, and fall came, then winter with more school, tedious and wearing, and again spring and summer. Cowboys were plentiful now in the growing range, but Pan avoided them, ashamed and sick because he could not approach them without Curly. He never got over grieving for his pony, though he reached a stage where any horse would have freed him from his melancholy. He played alone, or with Lucy. She was the one bright spot in all that gray prairie. Lucy was growing fast now; her golden curly head seemed to spring up at him.

That autumn the homesteaders erected a schoolhouse of their own. It was scarcely three miles from Pan's home.

"Pan, can you walk it?" asked Bill Smith with his keen eye on the lad. "Yes Daddy--but--but," replied Pan, unable to finish with the thought so dear to his heart.

"Ah--huh. An' before long Lucy will be old enough to go too," added his father. "Reckon you'll take her?"

"Yes, Daddy." And for Pan there was real gladness in that promise.

"Wal, you're a good boy," declared the father. "An' you won't have to walk to school. I've traded for two horses for you."

"Two!" screamed Pan, wild with joy. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" 

In due time the new horses arrived at the Smith homestead. Their names were Pelter and Pilldarlick. Pelter was a pinto, snappy and pretty, though he had a wicked eye. Pilldarlick was not showy, but he was small and strong, easy gaited and gentle. Pan thought he was going to like Pelter best, although Pilldarlick was surely a cowboy name and therefore all satisfying. It turned out, however, that Pan could not ride Pelter. He was locoed. He bucked Pan off every time. Pilldarlick was really much better than he looked, and soon filled the void in Pan's heart.

The first time he rode Pilldarlick to the new school marked another red-letter day in the life of Panhandle Smith, cowboy. There were many boys and a few girls who had come to attend the school, only a few of whom had horses to ride. Pan was the proud cynosure of all eyes as he rode Pilldarlick round the yard for the edification of his schoolmates. It was the happiest day of Pan's life--up until Dick Hardman arrived on a spirited little black mustang.

"Hey, where'd you git that nag?" yelled Dick, when he sighted Pan. "An' say, your saddle ain't nothin' but rawhide on a stump."

"You're a liar!" shouted Pan, fiercely tumbling off Pilldarlick.

The red-headed lad pitched out of his saddle and made for Pan. They began to fight. Instinct was Pan's guide. He hit and scratched and kicked. But Dick being the larger began to get the better of the battle, and soon was beating Pan badly when the new teacher came out to his rescue.

"Stop it," she ordered, separating the belligerents. "Only cats and dogs fight."

"So--do--cowboys!" panted Pan.

"Not nice ones. Only bad cowboys," she replied, leading Pan away.

"I'll lick you next time," yelled Dick, evilly. "You stuck-up little snot!" 

CHAPTER THREE

Miss Amanda Hill, the teacher, rang the bell, calling all her scholars in, and school began once more.

Dick Hardman sat across the room from Pan and behind the teacher's back he made ugly faces at Pan and, more than that, put his nose to his thumb. Pan understood that, and quick as a flash, he returned the compliment.

Recess came. Before half the scholars were out of the room Dick and Pan had run to the barn, out of the teacher's sight, and here they fell upon each other like wildcats. It did not take Dick long to give Pan the first real beating of his life. Cut lip, bloody nose, black eye, dirty face, torn blouse--these things betrayed Pan at least to Miss Hill. She kept him in after school, and instead of scolding she talked sweetly and kindly. Pan came out of his sullenness, and felt love for her rouse in him. But somehow he could not promise not to fight again.

"S'pose Dick Hardman does that all over again!" expostulated Pan in despair. He did not realize what he felt. He wanted to please and obey this sweet little woman, but there was a revolt in him. "What'll my--my daddy--say when he hears I got licked!" he sobbed.

She compromised finally by accepting Pan's willing promise not to pick a fight with Dick.

Despite the unpleasant proximity of Dick Hardman, that winter at school promised to be happy and helpful to Pan. There were three large boys, already cowboys, who attended Miss Hill's school. Pan gravitated at once to them, and to his great satisfaction they accepted him.

Later his old cowboy friend of the roundup arrived on the range with a trail herd of cattle from Texas. Their brand was an O X, a new one to Pan. He kept a record of all the brands he had seen, and practiced drawing them on paper. Moore and three of his cowboys came to board at Pan's home, and kept their string of horses there. Pan's cup was full. The days flew by. Snow and cold were nothing to him. Not even study, and the ever-malicious Dick Hardman could daunt his spirit. Moore meant to winter his herd there, and wait for spring before he drove it farther north.

The cowboys' nickname for Moore was Pug, and another fellow whose real name Pan never heard was called Slats. They taught Pan all the cowboy songs from "Ti yi oop oop ya ya" to "Bury me on the Lone Prairie." Every night Pan listened to them sing by the fire in their bunkhouse, and many times he had to be called to do his chores.

Another of the cowboys was called Hookey. His nose resembled that of a parrot and he had the disposition of a locoed coyote, according to Pug and Slats. Hookey took a dislike to Pan, and always sought to arouse the boy's temper. These cowboys were always gone in the morning before Pan got up, but by the time he arrived home from school on Pilldarlick they were usually there.

Slats, who wanted to be a lady killer, would say: "Wal, Button, what did your school marm say about me today?" And Hookey would make fun of Pilldarlick, which ridicule had more power to hurt Pan than anything else. One day Pan gave way to fury, and with flying rocks he chased Hookey into the cellar, and every time Hookey poked up his head Pan would fling a stone with menacing accuracy. That time his mother came to the rescue of the cowboy. After that Hookey bought a new saddle and gave Pan his old one. That settled hostilities. Pan had a change of heart. No matter how Hookey teased or tormented him he could never again make him angry. Pan saw Hookey with different eyes.

He was unutterably happy now with a horse and saddle too, and went about singing: "My trade is cinchin' saddles an' pullin' bridle reins."

One day two strange men arrived at the Smith homestead. They had still hard faces, intent gray eyes; they packed guns, and one of them wore a bright star on his vest. These men took Hookey away with them. And after they were gone the cowboys told Pan that Hookey was wanted for horse stealing. Young as Pan was he understood the enormity of that crime in the eyes of cowboys. He felt terribly hurt and betrayed. Long indeed was it before he forgot Hookey.

Swiftly that winter passed. Pan had a happy growing time of it. Study had not seemed so irksome, perhaps owing to the fact that he had a horse and saddle; he could ride to and fro; he often stopped to see Lucy who was now big enough to want to go to school herself; and the teacher had won his love. Pan kept out of fights with Dick Hardman until one recess when Dick called him "teacher's pet." That inflamed Pan, as much because of the truth of it as the shame. So this time, though he had hardly picked a fight, he was the first to strike. With surprising suddenness he hit the big Dick square on the nose. When Dick got up howling and swearing, his face was hideous with dirt and blood. Then began a battle that dwarfed the one in the barn. Pan had grown considerably. He was quick and strong, and when once his mother's fighting blood burned in him he was as fierce as a young savage. But again Dick whipped him.

Miss Hill, grieved and sorrowful, sent Pan home with a note. It chanced that both his father and mother were at home when he arrived. They stood aghast at his appearance.

"You dirty ragged bloody boy!" cried his mother, horrified.

"Huh! You oughta see Dick Hardman!" ejaculated Pan.

The lad thought he had ruined himself forever with Miss Amanda Hill. But to his amaze and joy he had not. Next day she kept him in after school, cried over him, kissed him, talked long and earnestly. All that Pan remembered was: "Something terrible will come of your hate for Dick Hardman if you don't root it out of your heart."

"Teacher--why don't you--talk to Dick this way?" faltered Pan, always won by her tenderness.

"Because Dick is a different kind of a boy," she replied, but never explained what she meant.

At Christmas time the parents of the school children gave a party at the schoolhouse. Every one on the range for miles around was there. Pan for once had his fill of seeing cowboys. Miss Amanda was an attraction no cowboys could resist. That night Pan spoke his first piece entitled: "Sugar-tooth Dick for sweeties was sick."

To Pan it seemed a silly piece, but he spoke it to please Miss Amanda, and because it was a hit at Dick Hardman. To his surprise he received a roar of applause. After the supper, dancing began. Some of the cowboys got drunk. There were fights, two of which Pan saw, to his thrilling fear and awe. It was long past midnight when he yielded to the intense drowsiness that overcame him. When he awoke at dawn they were still dancing.

Winter passed. Spring came with roundups too numerous for Pan to keep track of. And a swift happy summer sped by.

That fall a third uncle settled in the valley. He was an older brother of Pan's father, whom they called Old Uncle Ike. He was a queer old bachelor, lived alone, and did not invite friendliness. Pan was told to stay away from him. Old Uncle Ike was crabby and hard; when a boy, his heart had been broken by an unfaithful sweetheart; he had shot her lover and run away to war. After serving through the Civil War he fought Indians, and had lived an otherwise wild life.

But Pan was only the keener to see and know Old Uncle Ike. He went boldly to make his acquaintance. He found a sad-faced, gray old man, sitting alone.

Pan said bravely: "Uncle, I'm Pan Smith, your brother Bill's boy, an' I've come to see you because I'm sure I'll like you."

He did not find the old man unfriendly. Pan was welcome, and soon they became fast friends. Every Saturday Pan rode over to Uncle Ike's place, stealing some of the time he was supposed to be spending with Lucy. The little girl pouted and cried and railed at Pan for such base desertion, but he only laughed at her. Any time he wanted he could have Lucy. She grew sweeter and more lovable as she grew older, facts Pan took to his heart, but he chose the old man's stories of war and Indians in preference to Lucy's society.

Months passed, and Pan grew tall and supple, with promise of developing the true horseman's build. Then the spring when he was twelve years old arrived and his father consented to let him ride for wages at the roundup.

He joined a big outfit. There were over fifty cowboys, two bed wagons, two chuck wagons, and strings of horses too numerous to count. A new horse to ride twice a day! This work was as near paradise as Pan felt he had ever been. But for one circumstance, it would have been absolutely perfect, and that was that he had no boots. A fast-riding cowboy without boots!

In the heat of action, amid the whirling loop of bawling calves and cows, when the dry dust rose to stop up Pan's nostrils and cake on his hot sweaty face, when the ropes were whistling, the cowboys yelling, the brand iron sizzling, all he felt was the wild delight of it, the thrill of the risk, the excitement, the constant stirring life and motion. During leisure hours, however, he was always confronted with his lack of rider's equipment.

"Say, kid, who built them top boots of yourn?" asked one cowboy.

"Shore, I'll trade spurs with you," drawled another.

"Whar's yore fur chaps there, cowboy?" queried a third.

And so it went always and forever. The cowboys could not help that. It was born in them, born of the atmosphere and spirit of the singular life they lived. Nevertheless Pan loved them, and they were good to him.

His best friends in this outfit were Si and Slick, both horse wranglers, whose real names Pan never learned.

That roundup was prolific of wonderful experiences. One night when a storm threatened the foreman called to the cowboys not on duty; "Talk to 'em low, boys, fer they're gettin' ready."

He meant that the herd of cattle was likely to stampede. And when the thunder and rain burst the herd broke away with a trampling roar. Pan got soaked to the skin and lost in the rain. When he returned to camp only the cook and wagons were there. Next morning the cowboys straggled in in bunches, each driving part of the stampeded herd.

At breakfast one morning Pan heard a yell. "Ride him, cowboy!"

"Whoopee! Look at that outlaw comin' high, wide an' handsome!"

Pan just had time to see a terribly pitching red horse come tearing into the circle of cowboys. His rider went shooting over his head to alight among them. Then what a scattering! That red fiend spoiled the breakfast and cleaned out the camp. How the cowboys reviled the poor fellow who had been thrown!

"Huh! Broke yore collar bone?" yelled one. "Why you dod-blasted son of a sea cook, he oughta hev broke yore neck!"

And Si, the horse wrangler said: "Charlie, I reckon it's onconsiderate of you to exercise yore pet hoss on our stummicks."

One of the amazing things that happened during the winter was the elopement of Miss Amanda Hill with a cowboy. Pan did not like this fellow very well, but the incident heightened his already magnificent opinion of cowboys.

Pan never forgot Lucy's first day of school when he rode over with her sitting astride behind him, "ringin' his neck," as a cowboy remarked. Pan had not particularly been aware of that part of the performance for he was used to having Lucy cling to him. That embarrassed him. He dropped her off rather unceremoniously at the door, and went to put his horse in the corral. She was little and he was big, which fact further bore upon his consciousness, through the giggles of the girls and gibes of the boys. But they did not make any change in his attitude toward Lucy. All winter he took her to and from school on his horse. The summer following, he worked for his Uncle Ike.

As Pan grew older time seemed so much shorter than when he was little. There was so much to do. And all at once he was fifteen years old. His mother gave him a party on that birthday, which was marked on his memory by the attention his boy friends paid to Lucy. She was by far the prettiest girl in the valley. He did not know exactly what to make of his resentment, nor of the queer attitude of proprietorship he had assumed over her.