Although David was smiling when he left Abraham, he was serious when he turned from the door of the old man. He went to Connor's room, it was empty. He summoned Zacharias.  
"The men beyond the mountains are weak," said David, "and when I left him a little time since Benjamin was sighing and sleepy. But now he is not in his room. Where is he, Zacharias?"
 
"Shakra came into the patio¹ and neighed," Zacharias answered, "and at that Benjamin came out, rubbing his eyes. 'My friend,' said he to me, and his voice was smooth—not like those voices—"
 
"Peace, Zacharias," said David. "Leave this talk of his voice and tell me where he is gone."
 
"Away from the house," said the old man sullenly².
 
The master knitted his brows.
 
"You old men," he said, "are like yearlings who feel the sap running in their legs in the spring. You talk as they run—around and around. Continue."
 
Zacharias sulked as if he were on the verge³ of not speaking at all. But presently his eye lighted with his story.
 
"Benjamin," he went on, "said to me, 'My friend, that is a noble mare⁴.'
 
"'She is a good filly,' said I.
 
"'With a hundred and ten up,' said Benjamin, 'she would make a fast track talk.'"
 
"What?" said David.
 
"I do not know the meaning of his words," said the old servant, "but I have told them as he said them."
 
"He is full of strange terms," murmured David. "Continue."
 
"He went first to one side of Shakra and then to the other. He put his hand into his coat and seemed to think. Presently he stretched out his hand and called her. She came to him slowly."
 
"Wonderful!"
 
"That was my thought," nodded Zacharias.
 
"Why do you stop?" cried David.
 
"Because I am talking around and around, like a running yearling," said Zacharias ironically. "However, he stood back at length and combed the forelock of Shakra with his fingers. 'Tell me, Zacharias,' he said, 'if this is not the sister of Glani?'"
 
"He guessed so much? It is strange!"
 
"Then he looked in her mouth and said that she was four years old."
 
"He is wise in horses, indeed."
 
"When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on her back and a rope around her neck. 'Will the master be angry if I ride her?' he asked.
 
"I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day, and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day.
 
"He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than that. Then he went galloping⁶ down the road to the south."
 
"Good!" said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was pitched as shrill⁸ and small as the scream of a hawk⁹ when the hawk itself cannot be seen in the sky.
 
Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad Glani was already in the patio.
 
David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion.
 
"And when Shakra began to gallop⁷," said Zacharias, "Benjamin cried out."
 
"What did he say?"
 
"Nothing."
 
"Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking."
 
"Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in it."
 
The master bit his lip.
 
"Abraham has been talking folly¹¹ to you," he said; and, springing on the back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.
 
At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep murmur⁵ which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one expected the push of a gale¹⁴, coming out from the trees, but there was only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and shot out of sunlight into a black cavern¹⁵. Beside this gaping¹⁶ mouth of rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but Connor could not hear.
 
The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached the house of David with a solemn murmur.
 
"I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that peculiar¹⁷ stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.
 
"I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could rest in two hours on my bed."
 
It was like disarming¹⁸ a father by praise of his son.
 
"She has a gentle gait," smiled David.
 
"I tell you, man, she's a knockout!"
 
"A knockout?"
 
The gambler added hastily: "Next to Glani the best horse I have seen."
 
"You are right. Next to Glani the best in the valley."
 
"In the world," said Connor, and then gave a cry of wonder.
 
They had come through an avenue of the eucalyptus¹⁹ trees, and now they reached an open meadow, beyond which aspens trembled and flashed silver under a shock from the wind. Half the meadow was black, half green; for one of the old men was plowing²⁰. He turned a rich furrow²² behind him, and the blackbirds followed in chattering²³ swarms²⁵ in their hunt for worms. The plow²¹ team was a span of slender-limbed Eden Grays. They walked lightly with plow, shaking their heads at the blackbirds, and sometimes they touched noses in that cheery, dumb conversation of horses. The plow turned down the field with the sod curling swiftly behind. The blackbirds followed. There were soldier-wings among them making flashes of red, and all the swarm²⁴ scolded.
 
"David," said Connor when he could speak, "you might as well harness lightning to your plow. Why in the name of God, man, don't you get mules²⁶ for this work?"
 
The master looked to the ground, for he was angered.
 
"It is not against His will that I work them at the plow," he answered. "He has not warned me against it."
 
"Who hasn't?"
 
"Our Father whose name you spoke¹⁰. Look! They are not unhappy, Jurith and Rajima, of the blood of Aliriz."
 
He whistled, whereat the off mare tossed her head and whinnied.
 
"By Heaven, she knows you at this distance!" gasped²⁷ Connor.
 
"Which is only to say that she is not a fool. Did I not sit with her three days and three nights when she was first foaled? That was twenty-five years ago; I was a child then."
 
Connor, staring after the high, proud head of Jurith, sighed. The horses started on at a walk which was the least excellent gait in the Eden Grays. Their high croups and compa............