"Don't slip," warned Running Deer as they raced neck and neck. "The coyotes cannot catch either of us unless we stumble. If I should fall, you must not stop, but go right on to camp."
Star did not answer. He knew that if his mother fell, he would stay with her and fight the coyotes with his teeth and his heels so the hungry beasts could not tear her to pieces before she could get up again and run with him.
Twice he slipped on loose stones that rolled down the slopes in front of him, and once he fell and skinned his knees, but he leaped to his feet and kept at his mother's side.
At times the pack behind them ran silently, then Running Deer's eyes rolled backward to see how near they were. Star wondered how it would feel to have a coyote leap on him. He shivered, but all his fears vanished at his mother's next words.
"They are falling back now! We are gaining at every step!"
He glanced around. She was right. The coyotes were farther away, and evidently realized that the ponies had outdistanced them, for they were all running much more slowly. A few had halted and showed plainly that they intended to look elsewhere for their dinner that night. One by one the pack thinned, and finally a mournful howl told that the last pursuer had given up the chase, leaving Star and his mother alone and safe.
"When you fell to your knees"—Running Deer was walking now, and her nose reached across to Star's—"I thought we two had run our last race. They were very close just then."
"But you could have escaped," replied Star, whose bleeding knees made him wish he could stand in cool water for a little while, and he thought happily of the creek near camp.
"I would have stayed with you," his mother said quietly. Star was not surprised at her words, for he knew that he would have done the same thing for her, but he was glad it had not been necessary for either of them to make such a fight against their foes. With several hundred hungry coyotes against them, how could two ponies have kept up the fight till dawn? That was what he asked himself, and Running Deer had the same thought, though neither spoke of it.
In a few more minutes they both recognized the top of an elevation that overlooked the grazing place and safety for the night. Star, because of his raw knees, lagged slightly behind his mother, and as she stopped suddenly he hastened to her side, where both of them stared in amazement.