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.