"What is the matter?" she asked. "You are kicking so that you wakened me."
He told her the dream and she listened gravely, though she answered carelessly, "You are over-tired. After all, you are but a colt and your muscles are soft. You have been tested as few colts are tested at your age. Go to sleep again, so that you will be ready to travel with us, for last night I heard Quannah say that as soon as the big white ponies have rested, we would start for the camp of the women and children. Now that we have captured the white men's ponies they cannot catch us. That is why we are to rest for to-day."
When it was time to get up, Star felt as well as though he had never raced, but the big white ponies were still weary. Some of them did not rise. Many others moved stiffly as they mingled with the Comanche herd while they cropped the grass together like old friends.
Most of the warriors had gone across a small ridge into a gully or ravine, where they made a camp. This was done so that the smoke from their camp fire might not be seen from afar, and thus tell the white men where to hunt their lost ponies. Only dry wood was used for the camp fire. Wood fresh or green would have made too much smoke. A few warriors were left to guard the herd, for the Comanche ponies were trained to keep together, while the white ponies were too tired to run away, even if given a chance to escape.
Star wandered near the white horse that had begged him not to bite it because it was too old and too fat to run so fast. With raised head and a bunch of grass hanging from its lips, it looked curiously at the Comanche pony. Slowly its eyes travelled from Star's velvety nose, along his straight back, his slender legs and strongly muscled flanks to the sweeping black tail that almost touched the ground. The white horse swallowed the clump of grass before it spoke.
"You are a beautiful horse!"
"I am not a horse," Star answered indignantly, "I am a Comanche pony. What is a horse, anyway?"
"A horse is a big pony," replied the other. "I am a horse. We cannot run as swiftly as you ponies, but we are stronger to haul burdens when we are hitched to wagons by our masters."
Star was so surprised that he stopped grazing to talk with the good-natured white beast, and it told him there were thousands of men with white faces, who carried guns and lived in houses made of rocks instead of tepees of hides. He told how these men fed corn and hay to their horses, as well as grass. Then he explained how some horses were taught to be gentle, so that saddles were placed on their backs and bits in their mouths; other horses learned to drag carriages in which women and children rode safely, and still other horses hauled heavier wagons loaded with blankets and food.
"They even build houses for us," he continued, "and when it storms we are warm and dry and have nothing to do but chew our grain. If we have to go out in a rain, when we come back we are rubbed dry and a warm blanket covers us to our heels so that we may not be chilled. But sometimes white men are cruel to us," he added.