cited than
the occasion called for. Then remembering her father's warning, she
reined in on top of a little knoll, perhaps a hundred yards from where
the black horse stood, and she bent her keen gaze forward.

It was a huge, gaunt, shaggy black horse she saw, with the saddle
farther up on his shoulders than it should have been. He stood
motionless, as if utterly exhausted. His forelegs were braced, so that
he leaned slightly back. Then Lucy saw a rope. It was fast to the
saddle and stretched down into the cactus. There was no other horse in
sight, nor any living thing. The immense monument dominated the scene.
It seemed stupendous to Lucy, sublime, almost frightful.

She hesitated. She knew there was another horse, very likely at the
other end of that lasso. Probably a rider had been thrown, perhaps
killed. Certainly a horse had been hurt. Then on the moment rang out
the same neigh of agony, only weaker and shorter. Lucy no longer feared
an ambush. That was a cry which could not be imitated by a man or
forced from a horse. There was probably death, certainly suffering,
near at hand. She spurred the King on.

There was a little slope to descend, a wash to cross, a bench to
climb--and then she rode up to the black horse. Sage King needed harder
treatment than Lucy had ever given him.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded, pulling him down. Suddenly, as
she felt him tremble, she realized that he was frightened. "That's
funny!" Then when she got him quiet she looked around.

The black horse was indeed huge. His mane, his shaggy flanks, were
lathered as if he had been smeared with heavy soap-suds. He raised his
head to look at her. Lucy, accustomed to horses all her life, saw that
this one welcomed her arrival. But he was almost ready to drop.

Two taut lassoes stretched from the pommel of his saddle down a little
into a depression full of brush and cactus and rocks. Then Lucy saw a
red horse. He was down in a bad position. She heard his low, choking
heaves. Probably he had broken legs or back. She could not bear to see
a horse in pain. She would do what was possible, even to the extent of
putting him out of his misery, if nothing else could be done. Yet she
scanned the surroundings closely, and peered into the bushes and behind
the rocks before she tried to urge Sage King closer. He refused to go
nearer, and Lucy dismounted.

The red horse was partly hidden by overbending brush. He had plunged
into a hole full of c