But Pape had no time for detail except the one of a live dash of sorrel. The vital greens of grass and trees were rife, the deep blues of lakes, the silver of sunlight on the distances and the more mysterious regal purple of shadows. So far as concerned any splash of tabasco red, however, he might better have been seeking a maverick on the outreaches of Hellroaring.
Twice had he shifted his point of survey when he was rewarded by sudden sight of the steer upon a rhododendron covered mound, not more than a city block away. Unconcernedly the long-horn trotted onto the scene, glanced about, then slowed to a walk and began to browse. The hope of recapturing the fine creature uninjured before he injured others re-awoke in Pape. A cautious approach, a forward swish of rope, a forceful reaction— Unless luck all lay with his too rampant escutcheon, the chapter might be closed.
But luck this afternoon seemed to favor quadrupeds. Just as Polkadot slithered toward the green mound—just as, almost, he had borne his man-mate within roping distance, he chanced to misplace a topply bowlder and sent it crashing down the side of a rock-ribbed gorge, on its way sounding an alarm above the plash of a rainbowed waterfall. Again the steer was off. Again the bone-risking pursuit for man and beast was on.
Around hillocks, hurdling bowlders, dodging cones and knobs that were too slippery for climbing, ran the race. Once the brute leader miscalculated the space between a striped maple and a pignut hickory; for a moment was caught and held in a vise-like grip. But before his pursuer could close in, he had managed to wriggle free, shy only some few tufts of short hair, with no loss of determination to retain the freedom so energetically won.
Bellowing as if in self-congratulation, the steer bore away in an untried direction—one that led up a second summit almost as high as the “top of the park.” That this already was preëmpted by a group of busy beings and a couple of two-wheeled tool cars of the miniature Noah’s Ark sort used by highway contractors, did not concern the runaway. The red flag that waved above one of the supply wagons as a warning of blasting powder, however, did. With lowered head he charged, scattering the workers in as many directions as they numbered.
Pape did not stop to consider the danger of an explosion should the steer ram into the explosive. He spurred forward, his rope again circumscribing his head, ready for a throw the moment opportunity offered.
But the red took no chances of so soon ending his lively afternoon. Having learned to beware of enemies vehicular through his earlier impact against that Columbus Circle trolley, he dodged between the carts and bore off to the westward.
Pape, in his following rush across the butte-top, glimpsed a face that almost caused him to draw rein. Distorted by surprise and annoyance was the expression of the man crouched behind the powder cart, but not enough so to mask one of the hirelings of the Lauderdale enemy.
And the trees then whispering on the breeze-swept height were poplars! No time to stop to count them—no attention to spare for speculation as to whether the roar of a menagerie-imprisoned Nubian would carry that far. Nevertheless, the concentration of the rider, if not the pace of his mount, slackened somewhat through the continued pursuit of their wide-horned quarry.
“And a bunch of beef shall lead them,” paraphrased Pape close to one of Dot’s obligingly back-waggled ears.