The horses were bunched closely together as they neared the corral gate, the leader trotting easily and with apparently no concern, directly towards the entrance. He was seemingly resigned to the inevitable and the riders closed in sharply to urge them through. Grace was much elated over her successful debut and gave a little exultant shout as the massive head and shoulders of the blue stallion were momentarily framed in the opening. She was inclined to be contemptuous of the ease with which it had been accomplished, and in the relief of the thought dropped her rein loosely on the roan's neck. At that exact moment the cunning beast In the gateway whirled like a flash, lowered his head like a snake, and darted back through the plunging throng which opened before him as a dry pine butt splits to a stoutly driven wedge.
Owing to the dense smother of dust about the gateway, and the further fact that the bunch, not missing their leader in its enveloping clouds, were crowding through the opening into the corral, neither of the men noted the maneuver of the stallion until he broke out of the press, heading obliquely to one side, between Douglass and Miss Carter.
Then was she conscious of a hoarse cry that rang like the roar of an anguished lion above the din of trampling feet:
"To the left! Get out of his way, for Christ's sake! To the left!"
Out of the dust blur, an animated lead-blue bullet, shot the great stallion, his head held low, his body extended until his stomach brushed the sagebrush beneath. The roan, taking the bit between his teeth, turned as on a pivot, almost unseating his rider, and raced undirected towards the exact point where the escaping animal could be best intercepted, intent only on the well-understood work which was logically his duty. It was his business to head off and turn back the fugitive, and, unchecked by his helpless rider, who clung fearfully to her saddle-horn in her extremity, he ran the race of his life, putting his whole heart into the work, her light weight hampering him almost negligibly.
The point of intersection was at least five hundred yards away, the horses racing along the converging sides of an obtuse angle, the roan some hundred yards in the lead; the point of convergence was just below the brow of a little hill, and the roan, running in open ground, had the advantage of the blue who was impeded by the thick sagebrush; he gained rapidly, changing the locus of intersection thereby, and finally swung at right angles across the stallion's course.
Grace had been vaguely conscious of a crackle of pistol shots and a confused roar of profanely phrased implorations, but all her energies were concentrated to the end of keeping her seat on that plunging roan thunderbolt, whose speed was accelerated by the lashing reins which, dropping from her nerveless hand, were now flapping against his sides. Swinging in a beautiful arc of exactly the correct radius, the roan headed the blue in triumph, his legs stiffening as he crossed the latter's course, his hoofs tearing up the thin turf in a fifty-foot furrow as he essayed a turn in order to forestall any side divergence of the stallion. But the blue streak swerved not one iota.
With ears flattened against his head, eyes green with malignity and pain, lips curled back and teeth bared to the gums, he charged directly at the unbalanced roan, squealing fiendishly as he came. The gallant gelding floundered ineffectually for a footing, fell directly in the path of the infuriated beast, and threw his rider over his head.
Though dazed by her violent contact with the hard ground, Grace instinctively struggled to her knees, raising one hand as if to ward off that impending horror; twenty yards away the thudding hoofs beat on her ear drums like a funeral knell, her lips parted in a soundless gasp, then faintly as from a far distance she heard a dull concussion, felt a crashing blow, and lost consciousness.
When her eyes opened again they were in close juxtaposition to a rough tan-colored shirt whose coarse fiber rasped her cheek; the whole universe seemed rocking with a gentle up and down motion as soothing as the swing of her beloved hammock, but there was a curious numbness across her chest and lower limbs like that induced by the pressure of closely-encircling iron bands. Gradually it dawned upon her that she was in the arms of a man who, carrying her weight with perceptibly no effort, was running swiftly towards the house. One little shy upward glance completed her inventory; she deliberately closed her eyes and cuddled closer, so close that she could distinctly hear and count the strong heart-beats against her temple. Nor did she open them again until he had lain her on a sofa in the living room and bent solicitously over her.