She tried to make out how the man succeeded in holding the two horses though he was not even looking at them. Her deliberations, however, were suddenly interrupted by the man’s leaving the stone boat and going to her little one. When she saw him drag the colt to the stone boat, she went mad again and rushed at him with bared teeth; but as soon as he straightened himself and turned to her, she fled.
Her hatred included the old sorrel when she saw him start away dragging her baby off. She sprang at him from the side and nipped him savagely. The old fellow got frightened and backed up almost stepping upon the helpless little colt on the stone boat. The man got angry. He jumped from the stone boat and with his long whip struck her with all his strength squarely upon her tender nose. The pain took her breath away. She reared on her hind legs in a fit of agony, then dashed out of reach, and the man drove off with her colt.
Bewildered by her anguish, she ran after him, rending the air with her cries, zigzagging from one side to the other. When the man reached one of the black mounds, his sod barn, Queen remained at a distance, running around the place in a wide circle and running steadily as if she found relief in activity.
The man disappeared in the black mound, but when Queen ventured nearer, for fear that she would again attack the old sorrel, the man poked his head out of a hole in the wall and yelled at her; and she turned and ran. When she started for the barn again, the man came out altogether. She was forty rods away when she turned and as she did so she heard the strong, healthy call from her colt, muffled by the confinement of the barn; but apparently free as if he were untied. She replied with all her strength and ran toward the barn, stopping a hundred feet away and watching the man, as he fastened the barn-door securely.
She saw him unhook the horses from the stone boat and then drive them over to a queer-looking instrument that lay near the house. Then she saw them start away with the plow dragging behind the horses. They were coming toward her so she loped away to the right. When she stopped, she saw that they were not following her but were going off toward the south. Considerably relieved she watched them go till they were lost from view behind a hill.
She trotted up to the first of the two mounds, the man’s small, sod house and cautiously sniffed about for a few minutes to make sure that there was no other man about. The odours there were unendurable, but everything was motionless, and at a call from her little one, she ran to the barn. For a while she ran round and round it as she called, then suddenly she spied his little head through a hole in the wall. She attempted to thrust her head in. She just managed to touch him with her hot lips, but the fear of the evil-smelling barn forced her to withdraw her head, in spite of her desire to keep touching him. She had the feeling of being trapped herself and immediately loped away again. A thorough examination of the house and the plains, however, assured her that she was still free and that the man was not returning.
Again and again she thrust her head into the hole, and despite the nauseating odours she prolonged her caresses every succeeding time that she put her head through the window. Yet she realised that that was not giving her back her baby. At the same time the touch of his beloved head intensified the fire in her heart and she began desperately to seek some way of getting him out.
There was a pile of manure back of the barn which sloped upward till it almost reached the flat, straw roof. She ran around the barn in an attempt to find some opening and every time she came to the heap of manure she was forced to enlarge the circle she was making. With a look in every direction, to make sure the man was not returning, she suddenly started up the pile of manure and carefully stepped upon the roof of the barn.
She had only taken a step forward, though, when she felt the roof giving way under her feet. This frightened her and she attempted to turn back much too hastily. Before she could get back to the pile of dirt, half the roof together with a part of the wall caved in, dropping her down into the barn on top of the débris. She was very badly frightened. Without stopping even to look for her colt, she leaped over the remaining portion of the wall taking half of it with her.
She did not turn to see what she had accomplished but fled in terror over the fields. When her courage returned, she looked back and happily discovered that still the man had not returned, nor was there any other sign of danger. On the other hand her little colt was now standing near the broken wall, his head and shoulder sticking up above it, calling frantically. She then hurried back with all her speed, caressing him as if she hadn’t seen him for weeks, and urging him, in her dumb way, to come out.