第103章

A darkness, like the streaming clouds overhead, seemed to blot out Slone's sight, and then passed away, leaving it clearer.

Lucy was bending over him, binding a scarf round his shoulder and under his arm."Lin! It's nothing!" she was saying, earnestly."Never touched a bone!"Slone sat up.The smoke was clearing away.Little curves of burning grass were working down along the rim.He put out a hand to grasp Lucy, remembering in a flash.He pointed to the ledge across the chasm.

"They're--gone!" cried Lucy, with a strange and deep note in her voice.She shook violently.But she did not look away from Slone.

"Wildfire! The King!" he added, hoarsely.

"Both where they dropped.Oh, I'm afraid to--to look....And, Lin, I saw Sarch, Two Face, and Ben and Plume go down there."She had her back to the chasm where the trail led down, and she pointed without looking.

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.

"Oh, he beat the King!" cried Lucy."But you mustn't--you CAN'T tell Dad!""What CAN we tell him?"

"Oh, I know.Old Creech told me what to say!"A change, both of body and spirit, seemed to pass over the great stallion.

"WILDFIRE! WILDFIRE!"

Again the rider called to his horse, with a low and piercing cry.But Wildfire did not hear.

The morning sun glanced brightly over the rippling sage which rolled away from the Ford like a gray sea.

Bostil sat on his porch, a stricken man.He faced the blue haze of the north, where days before all that he had loved had vanished.Every day, from sunrise till sunset, he had been there, waiting and watching.His riders were grouped near him, silent, awed by his agony, awaiting orders that never came.

From behind a ridge puffed up a thin cloud of dust.Bostil saw it and gave a start.Above the sage appeared a bobbing, black object --the head of a horse.

Then the big black body followed.

"Sarch!" exclaimed Bostil.

With spurs clinking the riders ran and trooped behind him.

"More hosses back," said Holley, quietly.

"Thar's Plume!" exclaimed Farlane.

"An' Two Face!" added Van.

"Dusty Ben!" said another.

"RIDERLESS!" finished Bostil.

Then all were intensely quiet, watching the racers come trotting in single file down the ridge.Sarchedon's shrill neigh, like a whistle-blast, pealed in from the sage.From, fields and corrals clamored the answer attended by the clattering of hundreds of hoofs.

Sarchedon and his followers broke from trot to canter--canter to gallop--and soon were cracking their hard hoofs on the stony court.Like a swarm of bees the riders swooped down upon the racers, caught them, and led them up to Bostil.

On Sarchedon's neck showed a dry, dust-caked stain of reddish tinge.Holley, the old hawk-eyed rider, had precedence in the examination.

"Wal, thet's a bullet-mark, plain as day," said Holley.

"Who shot him?" demanded Bostil.

Holley shook his gray head.

"He smells of smoke," put in Farlane, who had knelt at the black's legs."He's been runnin' fire.See thet! Fetlocks all singed!"All the riders looked, and then with grave, questioning eyes at one another.

"Reckon thar's been hell!" muttered Holley, darkly.

Some of the riders led the horses away toward the corrals.Bostil wheeled to face the north again.His brow was lowering; his cheek was pale and sunken;his jaw was set.

The riders came and went, but Bostil kept his vigil.The hours passed.

Afternoon came and wore on.The sun lost its brightness and burned red.

Again dust-clouds, now like reddened smoke, puffed over the ridge.A horse carrying a dark, thick figure appeared above the sage.

Bostil leaped up."Is thet a gray hoss--or am--I blind?" he called, unsteadily.

The riders dared not answer.They must be sure.They gazed through narrow slits of eyelids; and the silence grew intense.

Holley shaded the hawk eyes with his hand."Gray he is--Bostil--gray as the sage....AN' SO HELP ME GOD IF HE AIN'T THE KING!""Yes, it's the King!" cried the riders, excitedly."Sure! I reckon! No mistake about thet! It's the King!"Bostil shook his huge frame, and he rubbed his eyes as if they had become dim, and he stared again.

"Who's thet up on him?"

"Slone.I never seen his like on a hoss," replied Holley.

"An' what's--he packin'?" queried Bostil, huskily.

Plain to all keen eyes was the glint of Lucy Bostil's golden hair.But only Holley had courage to speak.

"It's Lucy! I seen thet long ago."

A strange, fleeting light of joy died out of Bostil's face.The change once more silenced his riders.They watched the King trotting in from the sage.His head drooped.He seemed grayer than ever and he limped.But he was Sage King, splendid as of old, all the more gladdening to the riders' eyes because he had been lost.He came on, quickening a little to the clamoring welcome from the corrals.

Holley put out a swift hand."Bostil--the girl's alive--she's smilin'!" he called, and the cool voice was strangely different.