CHAPTER XXX
TREASURE-TROVE
Hesitation Kane was not a dodo, for nobody could deny that the trembling and snorting creature standing on the other side of this open hole was the beautiful wild stallion that had followed the range horses down from the hills more than a week before.
But such a pitiful looking creature as he was now! The girls expressed their pity for him without stint. Not that he was marred, or seriously injured in any way. But he was so weak from hunger that he could scarcely stand.
It was plain that a few shrubs and some bunch grass had grown in the bottom of this hole. He had eaten them down to the very roots, and then dug the roots up with his hoofs and chewed them.
Tom Collins' story of how he had chased the stallion and the creature had so suddenly disappeared, was now explained. The horse had slipped into the hole in the gulch above, just as the pack horse had. Only the wild horse had slid clear to the bottom of the funnel-shaped hole.
The outcropping ledge hid this opening which was at the level of the caves. Nobody could see the imprisoned horse from above. That, the searching party well knew.
"And to think that he might have starved to death here," murmured
Grace.
"Can you get him and tame him, Mr. Kane?" asked Bess Harley.
"But he should be Walter's horse," put in Nan Sherwood, earnestly. "Walter has felt all the time that he was here and that it was he that made the noise that scared us so."