her arms off. Still she finally got him in hand. Then followed miles of
soft and rough going, which seemed long and tedious. Beyond that was
the home stretch up the valley, whose gradual slope could be seen only
at a distance. Here was a straight, broad trail, not too soft nor too
hard, and for all the years she could remember riders had tried out and
trained their favorites on that course.

Lucy reached down to assure herself that the cinch was tight, then she
pulled her sombrero down hard, slackened the bridle, and let the King
go. He simply broke his gait, he was so surprised. Lucy saw him trying
to look back at her, as if he could not realize that this young woman
rider had given him a free rein. Perhaps one reason he disliked her had
been always and everlastingly that tight rein. Like the wary horse he
was he took to a canter, to try out what his new freedom meant.

"Say, what's the matter with you?" called Lucy, disdainfully. "Are you
lazy? Or don't you believe I can ride you?"

Whereupon she dug him with her spurs. Sage King snorted. His action
shifted marvelously. Thunder rolled from under his hoofs. And he broke
out of that clattering roar into his fleet stride, where his hoof-beats
were swift, regular, rhythmic.

Lucy rode him with teeth and fists clenched, bending low. After all,
she thought, it was no trick to ride him. In that gait he was
dangerous, for a fall meant death; but he ran so smoothly that riding
him was easy and certainly glorious. He went so fast that the wind
blinded her. The trail was only a white streak in blurred gray. She
could not get her breath; the wind seemed to whip the air away from
her. And then she felt the lessening of the tremendous pace. Sage King
had run himself out and the miles were behind her. Gradually her sight
became clear, and as the hot and wet horse slowed down, satisfied with
his wild run, Lucy realized that she was up on the slope only a few
miles from home. Suddenly she thought she saw something dark stir
behind a sage-bush just ahead. Before she could move a hand at the
bridle Sage King leaped with a frantic snort. It was a swerving,
nimble, tremendous bound. He went high. Lucy was unseated, but somehow
clung on, and came down with him, finding the saddle. And it seemed,
while in the air, she saw a long, snaky, whipping loop of rope shoot
out and close just where Sage King's legs had been.

She screamed. The horse broke and ran. Lucy, righting herself, looked