Slone got up, a little unsteady on his feet and conscious of a dull pain.
"Sarch will go straight home, and the others will follow him," said Lucy. "They got away here where Joel came up the trail. The fire chased them out of the woods. Sarch will go home. And that'll fetch the riders."
"We won't need them if only Wildfire and the King—" Slone broke off and grimly, with a catch in his breath, turned to the horses.
How strange that Slone should run toward the King while Lucy ran to Wildfire!
Sage King was a beaten, broken horse, but he would live to run another race.
Lucy was kneeling beside Wildfire, sobbing and crying: "Wildfire! Wildfire!"
All of Wildfire was white except where he was red, and that red was not now his glossy, flaming skin. A terrible muscular convulsion as of internal collapse grew slower and slower. Yet choked, blinded, dying, killed on his feet, Wildfire heard Lucy's voice.
"Oh, Lin! Oh, Lin!" moaned Lucy.
While they knelt there the violent convulsions changed to slow heaves.
"He run the King down—carryin' weight—with a long lead to overcome!" Slone muttered, and he put a shaking hand on the horse's wet neck.