No farther away!
Bolt, shining in the sun, was keeping pace with El Rey!
Farther back––a little farther back––was Arrow, running magnificently, too.
A greater distance behind the two came Slingshot.
Tharon was frightened. Not for herself. Not 137 for the intent of the men who came after her. Not for gun-fire, nor for capture.
She was afraid for the king! Afraid that Bolt could hold that wonderful pace! Then a surging rage rose and sickened her.
She leaned down again and called once more into the stallion’s ear and once more the note rose a notch. She felt that great pulsing seeming of reserve. Always when she called there was the answer. The plain swam beneath her like a blur. The thunder of the king’s hoofs was a single note also.
Then Tharon raised her eyes and saw that she had left the open land behind. The mountains were rising swiftly before, she was sweeping up their skirts. Trees flew by. She heard the singing of waters. The forests seemed to come down out of the skies to meet her, dark, forbidding.
She felt a sense of disaster, of helplessness. Where was she going, she and El Rey, with her enemies behind and coming fast? What was to be the end of the race? And then, all suddenly, the woods seemed to fall away on either side, a gateway to open up before her. A lovely open glade spread into the heart of the forest and the great king thundered in between the guarding pines. Like a silver flame he shot up the sloping 138 floor, slowed, changed and came to stop before a cabin that sat securely at the glade’s head.
With the crashing pound of El Rey’s ploughing hoofs upon the very stones at the step, a man came quickly from the interior of the cabin and stepped out, his hand lifted.