Mary stolidly began again:
“It was long tam ago before the white man come. The people not have horses then. Kakisas hunt on the great prairie that touch the sky all around. Many buffalo had been killed. The camp was full of meat. Great sheets hung in the lodges and on the racks outside to smoke. Now the meat was all cut up and the women were working on the hides. Cure some for robes. Scrape hair from some for leather——”
The story got no further. From across the little stream they heard a muffled thunder of hoofs in the grass.
Stonor sprang up. “My horses!” he cried. “Stampeded, by God! The cowardly devils!”
Imbrie laughed.
Stonor snatched up his gun. “Back from the fire!” he cried to the women. “I’m going to shoot!”
He splashed across the ford, and, climbing the bank, dropped on his knee in the grass. The horses swerved, and galloped off at a tangent. They were barely visible to eyes that had just left the fire. Stonor counted seven animals, and he had but six with Imbrie’s. On the seventh there was the suggestion of a crouching figure. Stonor fired at the horse.
The animal collapsed with a thud. Stonor ran to where he lay twitching in the grass. It was a strange horse to him. The rider had escaped. But he could not have got far. The temptation to follow was strong, but Stonor, remembering his prisoner and the women who depended on him, refused to be drawn. He returned to where Clare and Mary awaited him at a little distance from the fire. Meanwhile the horses galloped away out of hearing into the bush beyond the little meadow. Imbrie was still secure in his bonds. Stonor kept a close watch on him.
They had not long to wait before dawn began to weave colour in the sky. Light revealed nothing living but themselves in the little valley, or around its rim. The horse Stonor had shot still lay where he had dropped. Stonor returned to him, taking Mary. The animal was dead, with a bullet behind its shoulder. It was a blue roan, an ugly brute with a chewed ear. It had borne a saddle, but its owner had succeeded in retrieving that under cover of darkness. The man’s tracks were visible, leading off towards the side trail.
“Mary, whose horse is that?” Stonor asked.