Without any assistance, Pat drove the goats to the corral.  More than that, at Starr’s command, he split the band and held half of them aloof while the rest went in.  He sent these straight down the Basin until Starr recalled him, when he swung back and corralled them with the others.  He came then toward the three for further orders, whereupon Vic, who had been silent from sheer amazement, gave a sudden whoop.

“Hey, Pat!  You forgot something.  Go back and put up the bars!” he yelled.  Then he heaved his hoe-handle far from him and stretched his arms high over his head like one released from an onerous task.  “I’ll walk out and let Pat have my job,” he said.  “Herding goats is dog’s work anyhow, and I told you so the first day, Helen Blazes.  Hadn’t herded ’em five minutes before I knew I wasn’t cut out for a farmer.”

“Go on, Pat; you stay with your goats,” Starr commanded gently.  And Pat, because he had suckled a nanny goat when he was a pup, and had grown up with her kid, and had lived with goats all his life, trotted into the corral, found himself a likeable spot near the gate, snuffed it all over, turned around twice, and curled himself down upon it in perfect content.

“He’ll stay there all night,” Starr told them, laying the bars in their sockets.  “It’s a little early to corral ’em, sundown is about the regular time, but it’s a good scheme to give him plenty of time to get acquainted with the layout.  You get up early, Vic, and let ’em out on the far side of the ridge.  Pat’ll do the rest.  I’ll have to jog along now.”

“Well, say,” Vic objected, rubbing his tousled blond hair into a distracted, upstanding condition, “I wish you’d show me just how you shift his gears.  How the dickens do you do it?  He don’t know what you say.”

Before he left, Starr showed him the gestures, and Vic that evening practised them so enthusiastically that he nearly drove Helen May wild.  Perhaps that is why, when she was copying a sentence where Holman Sommers had mentioned the stars of the universe, Helen May spelled stars, “Starr’s” and did not notice the mistake at all.

CHAPTER TEN

THE TRAIL OF SILVERTOWN CORDS

Having wasted a couple of hours more than he intended to spend in delivering the dog, Starr called upon Rabbit to make up those two hours for him.  And, being an extremely misleading little gray horse, with a surprising amount of speed and endurance stored away under his hide, Rabbit did not fall far short of doing so.

Starr had planned an unexpected visit to the Medina ranch.  In the guise of stock-buyer his unexpectedness would be perfectly plausible, and he would be well pleased to arrive there late, so long as he did not arrive after dark.  Just before sundown would do very well, he decided.  He would catch Estan Medina off his guard, and he would have the evening before him, in case he wanted to scout amongst the arroyos on the way home.