"All right, I'll go. But first let's make what repairs we can. That will make it easier for you to hold in the cattle."
There was some wire at the corral, and with this, and by using some of the broken posts and boards, the gap in the fence was made smaller so the cattle would not be so likely to try to rush through it.
This done, Pete prepared to mount guard while Dave leaped to the back of Crow and started for the ranch on the gallop, to bring help and to tell the story of the broken corral.
"I wonder if I'd better mention Len?" thought Dave, as he rode on. "I'm pretty sure he did the trick, but I don't want to accuse any one unjustly, even him."
After thinking it over Dave decided that it would be better not to say anything about Len just yet. He would let matters take their own course.
"But I'll be on the watch for him," he made up his mind.
Dave's mind was busy with many thoughts, and his body was weary with the exertions through which he had just passed. But there was a certain sense of exhilaration after all. He had done a good piece of work, and he realized it. Of course Pocus Pete had helped, but Dave was in a fair way to stop the stampede when the old foreman came along.
"I'll get to be a regular cowboy after a while," thought Dave, not without a little smile of gratification.
To get to the ranch more quickly the young cowpuncher took a trail that led through a patch of rocky woodland. It was a curious formation in the midst of the flat cattle country, being a patch several miles square, consisting of some rocky hills, well wooded, with a number of deep gullies in them. More than once cattle had wandered in among them and been lost. And it was said that at one time a noted band of cattle rustlers, or thieves, had made their headquarters in this wood, and had held out a long time against the attacks of the cattlemen.
Dave rode through this not very cheerful place. He had been keeping his eyes open for a sight of Len Molick, but had caught no further glimpse of the bully whom he suspected.