High up under the snow rims, where the grass was short but rich with moss and lichens, lay a little lake. Its upper shore line was formed by a barren rockslide which tumbled down from the naked cliffs above timber line, its lower edge was fringed with spruce and balsam. Below the lake nestled a little meadow. On this meadow fed a band of twenty horses.
At the head of this band of wild horses ran a chestnut stallion, a heavy-chested, thick-legged fellow with a splashed white star in his forehead. His protruding eyes were set wide apart and his heavy jaws and massive neck showed his battling qualities, while his wide chest and thick barrel indicated great strength.
The chestnut stud moved restlessly as he fed, jerking up his head, listening, testing the air with flaring nostrils. The mares with their colts close beside them cropped the short grass, content to let him keep a wary watch for danger.
And there was danger ahead on every trail. There was the lank cougar whose desire for colt flesh was greater than any urge in his tawny body except the hot flames that fired him when the mating call floated up through the twilight under the high spruce. There was11 the wolf pack, not so dangerous in summer but always ready to kill. The chestnut stallion knew that at this season the old lobos would be running with their sons and daughters in bachelor packs. They were training their young to kill and would attack any colt or mare that strayed far from the band. There was the bear gone killer, the brute who had deserted his vegetable diet and turned killer. He was not a common enemy, but one that was terrible in savage lust for slaughter. Lastly, there was the most dreaded enemy of all, man.
The chestnut had learned that man was the most ruthless and dangerous of the killers. He walked upright and his eyes were in front of his head, not at the side as in animals who do not kill but are pursued by the killers. The ranchers did not like wild horses because they ate the range grass and often crossed with the ranch mares, who then brought forth scrubby, worthless colts, mean and useless as saddle stock. The chestnut stallion stole mares from the range when he could coax or drive them from their pastures. With savage daring he led his band into the tall-grass range in the summer. If the cowboys with their rifles hunted him too persistently he faded away to a distant range down in the desert. In this he was like the lobo wolf. When poison and traps and guns become too evident an old lobo shifts his range.
The chestnut stallion had begun to feel that it was time for him to lead his band out of the Crazy Kill country. He was being steadily hunted. Rifles spat in the misty dawn, riders swooped down on the mares when they came out into the open to feed. Major Howard had given orders to kill or run the wild band off his range. He wanted no crossing of his good stock. At first he had played with the idea of having the chestnut stud brought in alive, but his riders could not trap or outrun the big fellow in the rough, broken country. There12 were too many avenues of escape, too many canyons and tangled mats of down timber. So the major gave the order to shoot the big stud and to exterminate his band.
The steady drives and constant ambushes had thinned the ranks of the band from thirty to twenty mares. The big stallion was ready to leave the tall-grass country. He jerked up his head and snorted shrilly, then he circled the herd at a fast trot. When he had gone once around it he halted and stood listening, rigid, his head up, his mane flowing in the wind. He heard a rock rattle from a trail above; then he saw a man. The man was on foot and he was toiling upward, a pack strapped on his back. He did not seem to be interested in the band of wild horses, but the wind carried a strong man smell to the meadow. The scent was rank with the odor of an old pipe.
The chestnut stallion laid back his ears and bared his teeth. With a shrill warning he lunged at the rump of the nearest mare. She whinnied with fright as she galloped away. The stallion drove the other mares into a thundering stampede. They charged across the meadow and into the timber, the colts bounding along at their mothers’ sides.
As soon as they were in deep cover the chestnut took the lead. He headed up a steep trail and did not stop until the band had reached a saddle in the snow range. Here he halted to let the mares and colts blow. The colts shouldered against their mothers, their pink noses and lips reaching under sweat-streaked flanks in search of milk. Their curly tails bobbed and jerked as they drank. The mares looked up at the snow peaks out of big, calm eyes. They were used to the sudden frenzied retreats of the big stallion, but they never became as excited as he, except when rifles spat and men raced shouting upon them.
After the rest spell the chestnut led the band down along a wooded ridge. He kept to deep cover so that an13 enemy posted on a peak or bare rim could not see the moving mares and colts. Toward midafternoon he halted the band in a little meadow to feed. The mares and colts began pulling the long grass eagerly. They were aware that the rest period might be short, and wanted to get their bellies filled as quickly as possible. They were right. The big stallion allowed time for but half a meal. He did not want them heavy and sleepy from overfeeding.
They moved down the mountain toward the deep, blue slash which was Shadow Canyon. The chestnut halted at the edge of a wide meadow. His protruding eyes had sighted a little cabin at the upper end of the meadow. He was about to lead his band back into the spruce when he saw a black mare standing with head up and ears pricked forward. He heard the blast of a whistler sounding a general alarm, and his ears flattened. The whistlers always annoyed him. He liked to move through the woods unnoticed and unheralded. But he remained at the edge of the timber watching the black mare, his nostrils twitching eagerly.
No one came out of the cabin. The stallion pawed and whinnied low. His call was answered by the black mare. There was eagerness in her whinny. The chestnut cast caution aside. Here was a sleek and slender mare he could add to his band. He trotted out into the meadow, neck arched, red mane floating in the wind.
Lady Ebony stood for a moment looking at the chestnut stallion, then she arched her neck and kicked her heels high. With a toss of her head she trotted toward him. They met in the center of the meadow with the mares watching out of calm, uninterested eyes. The mares fell to feeding while the colts bucked and bounced.
For a moment the noses of the two horses met, then the black mare whirled and lashed out at the stallion with her trim hoofs. He dodged and whinnied shrilly. Lady14 Ebony broke and ran down the meadow with the stallion thundering after her. He laid back his ears and charged with all his speed, but the flying black mare was faster. She pulled easily away from him and the sight of her slim body slipping away made the big stallion scream savagely. Never before had a mare been able to outrun him, to slip away from him with ease.
Seeing that she was leaving the big fellow behind, Lady Ebony whirled and halted, her front feet on a little hummock of grass. She waited until he was almost upon her, then she dodged past him and raced toward the mares. Again she outran him easily.
The chestnut was filled with a wild desire to drive this fleet mare into his band and lead her away. He swerved and charged. She dodged and leaped past him. Lady Ebony was not trying to escape, she was giving play to the pulsing life within her. The coming of the chestnut stallion was something she had expected. She had been restless and nervous; now that restlessness was gone and she was filled with surging energy.
The chestnut raced around the meadow again, trying to overtake Lady Ebony. He finally halted and stood with heaving sides. There was a savage light in his protruding eyes. Lady Ebony trotted toward him and stood nickering softly. She wanted to run some more. But the big stallion knew he was beaten. He was aware that he had made a great deal of noise, and noise was likely to bring riders with rifles. He turned and began driving his band off the meadow.
As they trotted toward the narrow trail leading down into Shadow Canyon, Lady Ebony tossed her head and trotted after the band. The big stallion lunged at her with bared teeth. She humped her back and jigged up and down, warning him that if he nipped her she would lash out at him. He reached out to snap at her flanks and was15 met by two small hoofs which smashed against his wide chest. With a snort he leaped aside. He did not lunge at her again. She was much to his liking, a fighter and a swift runner.
Lady Ebony fell in with the mares and the band moved down into the deep, green twilight of the canyon. They kept going until they reached the bottom. There they paused, crowding to the edge of the river, thrusting their muzzles into the cold water foaming over the rocky bed.
When the horses had drunk their fill they moved on down the canyon. Several miles of fast moving brought them to a high wall of red cliffs. Here Crazy River turned east and the canyon deepened. The chestnut sent the band up a trail which switchbacked and looped up out of the depths. With bared teeth and smashing hoofs he shoved the band up the trail and onto a mesa. Out on flat ground he let them rest. He was heading toward the desert where they would be free of attack from armed riders.
The mares fed on the bunch grass which carpeted the mesa. They kept well together and jerked up their heads, whinnying to their colts when the little ones strayed. There was danger in each adventurous trip the colts made, for they had not yet learned to watch and to listen. This broken country was the natural home of the cougar. It was also the den area for the gray wolves. When the colts trotted too far, their mothers followed and herded them back.
Above the mesa towered the snow peaks of the Crazy Kill Range. The snowbanks were not so close as they had been that morning, but seen through the high, thin air they seemed to be brooding no more than a short canter above the tableland. To the south, seen through a forest of trees and leaves much lighter green than the spruce, lay the desert, flat, eroded, purple in the evening light.16 The meadow was bordered on the lower side by an aspen grove. When the wind came up out of the canyon, the aspens seemed to shudder. A cross made of aspen wood had once been lifted on Calvary, so the preachers and the circuit rider said; possibly the aspens remembered. They quaked and their round leaves rattled and rustled like a million tiny cymbals. Below the aspen belt lay the scrub oaks, stunted trees with twigs as tough and hard as iron.
The chestnut stallion felt safer here on the edge of the wild, high country. A short run would take his band into the scrub oaks where no rider could follow without dismounting.
The sun dipped downward and hung on the blue rim of the western horizon. It looked like a huge ball of red fire. Slowly it settled from sight. Then shafts of red and gold light radiated upward, filling the sky and the air with a bloody haze. The wind died down and silence settled over the aspen grove. For a short space the world was aflame, then the sunset cooled and steel-blue dusk crept up out of the big canyon. The round moon, which had been dimmed to faint paleness by the sunset, flooded the mesa with soft light.
The chestnut moved close to Lady Ebony. He nickered low. She tossed her head, and they were off on a wild gallop around the meadow. They ran through the moonlight, disregarding rocks and gopher holes, leaping over sage clumps and patches of buckbrush, their manes and tails billowing in the wind, their rushing bodies surging with power. They circled the meadow twice. Lady Ebony easily keeping ahead of the big stallion.
After the second round, the black mare swerved and raced to a high, jutting point. Here she halted and the chestnut charged up beside her. He pawed and shook his head, then reared on his hind legs and his powerful forefeet17 curved under him. When his forefeet settled to the ground, Lady Ebony moved closer to him, her shoulder pressing against his muscled chest. The chestnut nickered proudly.
From an aspen stand below the feeding mares leaped five shadowy gray forms. They ran with long leaps, their black muzzles lifting and falling with an even, graceful flow of motion. Red tongues lolled over white fangs and yellow eyes flamed in the moonlight. From shaggy chests came eager yelps. The chestnut blasted a shrill warning to the mares, but the wolves did not swerve to attack the colts. They raced across the mesa, running for the pure joy of giving play to their stringy muscles.
At the lower edge of the meadow they startled an old doe who had come out of the aspens to feed. One of the gray killers turned in along the edge of the woods, the others fanned out and their eager yelps changed to a chorus of savage howls. The old lobo at their head had sounded the cry of the kill.
The startled mule deer doubled her slim legs under her and bounded. She landed many yards down the slope, and bounded again. Her white rump patch flashed in the silvery light as she fled. Three of the wolves raced after her while two turned right and leaped away around the hill. The doe reached the edge of the mesa and bounded down the steep slope at a pace which rapidly outdistanced her pursuers. When they were out of sight she swerved and ran around the hill. She intended to return to her feed ground by doubling back, a trick used by both mule deer and big rabbits. She broke out on the mesa a little below where she had been feeding when the killers startled her. Behind her she could hear the faint yelping of the three following lobos. She suddenly planted her feet and tried to pivot so she could plunge back down the hill. Two savage, grinning killers had appeared, one a little above18 her and one a little below. They were cutting in on her as fast as they could leap over the brush and rocks.
The doe whirled back down the slope, but before she had taken three jumps she was met by the three killers who had stayed on her trail. They were fanned out, running well apart. She slid to a halt and turned to run around the hill, but she was too late. The killers swarmed over her, the two attacking wolves leaping in at almost the same instant. She went down bleating and kicking.
In a few minutes the night was filled with the snarling and growling of the feeding pack. Up on the ledge Lady Ebony crowded closer to the big stallion. He snorted defiantly and rubbed his head against hers.
That night the wild horses stayed on the mesa. The next day Lady Ebony loped down into the desert, one of the wild band, a willing member of the chestnut stallion’s harem. They traveled at an easy lope which their tough bodies could hold for many hours. They halted in little meadows to feed and sought streams and water holes when they were thirsty.
As they moved into the canyon-slotted, eroded world of the desert they left the clear streams behind, and had to depend upon the knowledge of the chestnut stallion or one of the old mares for the location of pools and springs. The grass was shorter, curly buffalo and gamma, growing in clumps that defied shifting sand and hot wind.
The world changed quickly. The spruce, the aspens, and even the scrub oak vanished and in its place there was juniper—dry, defiant of the heat, sending its roots deep into the yellow earth, down cracks in the sand rock. The canyons were walled with red and yellow sandstone. The washes were bedded deep with sand instead of water, and the wind made the sand creep along, piling it into the dunes on the mesas, knifing it out in drifts from19 the ledges of rimrock. The days were hot and dry, but the nights were cool to the point of chillness.
From sentinel buttes or rims they sometimes sighted copper-skinned Navajos riding always at a gallop, on lean, bony ponies. The Navajos were always hurrying, though they had no place to go and all eternity to get there in. Once Lady Ebony sighted a summer hogan with two Navajo women and four children sitting in the shade of a canopy of dry leaves and cottonwood branches. The women were patiently slipping colored thread across a loom, back and forth, back and forth, one thread above another. Below the hogan a sad-looking band of sheep and goats cropped at the short grass.
The chestnut stallion snorted angrily when he smelled the grass where the sheep had been. He did not like sheep taint. He led the band far from the pasture lands of that Navajo family.