Beyond Rope and Fence

by David Grew

Queen drank very little. She was worried and very nervous. While most of the horses walked into the pond, looking for deeper and clearer water, she took a few hasty sips of the warm, muddy stuff on the edge and then ran up the slope to take another look. There seemed to be nothing untoward on the plains, but to make sure she remained there a while and grazed.

She had not been grazing more than a few minutes when she was startled by a frantic splashing in the pond. She looked down in time to see White-black whose forelegs had sunk into a mud-hole, attempt to turn round. Half a dozen of the others began to struggle just as frantically. Some of them managed to reach hard ground, but White-black and two others seemed to sink deeper the harder they struggled.

At first all this violent effort to get out made her think that some awful danger had suddenly arisen in the centre of the pond, but the light grey mud on the flanks of those who did get out, apprised her of the fact that they had struck an alkali mud-hole. She had had her experience with alkali mud-holes before. They had been in the habit of drinking at the other end of the slough and had come to this end now only because the other end was somewhat nearer to the territory from which they had just escaped.

She hurried down to the side of White-black and as he resumed his struggling, she called to him anxiously. Finally the three of them ceased struggling for a while and set up a helpless neighing to which those on the shore responded just as helplessly.

There was little danger of drowning for the water was very shallow, but the fear of being caught, the fear of the pursued creature still warm in their throbbing hearts, kept them struggling and their struggles tired them out and drove them down deeper into the mud. Queen was perplexed. It seemed as if everything were combining for their destruction, that even the mud joined man in his effort to torture them. She called to the helpless creatures ceaselessly, running up and down the slope in a frenzy of fear.

Suddenly while she was down at the edge of the pond, urging White-black to exert himself and White-black was groaning for want of strength, the wind shifted and brought from the northwest a message of danger. The horses who were free ran up the slope to the southeast. Queen, who was this time behind the others, suddenly stopped half way up the slope and turning back called frantically to White-black. Her life long association with White-black had endeared him more strongly to her than the other two and it seemed hard for her to leave him in distress.

She ran back to the edge of the water, stamping her foot and calling with all her strength; but White-black only weakened himself. One of the two other horses, in a violent last effort, pulled himself half way out, and dropped back, but White-black ceased trying.

The hoof beats of the free horses faded away in the distance and their rhythmic patter was followed by those of the enemy’s horses. A man’s head appeared at the rim of the hollow and with a last call to White-black, Queen shot up the slope and away to the southwest. The men had seen the other horses first and had veered to go after them, when they discovered Queen. Trying to head her off, one man started down the slope and as he did so he discovered White-black and his two companions struggling in the mud.

As Queen fled she heard the one man whistling to the others. She could not hear anyone behind her but she did not stop to find out whether she was being followed or not. In the distant west she saw the shadowy blue of a clump of trees and she made for that with every bit of strength left in her. When she reached the trees she first shot under cover, then investigating to make sure that no dangerous animal was hidden there, or that no men were coming from any other direction, she pushed her way out to a thicket of buffalo berries, and stopped to scan the plains she had covered.

Not a living thing stirred on the monotonous level of the prairies. Only heat waves danced above the narrow, blue strips of woodland shadows. Within a few minutes she was convinced that no one was coming after her and then despite her fear and restlessness, and her anxiety to get back to the other horses that had escaped, she sank down to the ground, snorting and panting like a dog. But within half an hour she was off again in pursuit of the remnant of the herd.