She stood up, and he grinned to show that the whole thing was an immense
lark, and that what he had done was just what he had planned to do from
the very beginning. So that incident ended. But he was very thoughtful
all that day.

The next day this foolish drab creature with the leonine mane, instead
of going about the grazing or hunting he was made for, was prowling
round the horses again. The Eldest Mare was all for silent contempt. "I
suppose he wants to learn something from us," she said, and "_Let_ him."
The next day he was at it again. The Master Horse decided he meant
absolutely nothing. But as a matter of fact, Ugh-lomi, the first of men
to feel that curious spell of the horse that binds us even to this day,
meant a great deal. He admired them unreservedly. There was a rudiment
of the snob in him, I am afraid, and he wanted to be near these
beautifully-curved animals. Then there were vague conceptions of a kill.
If only they would let him come near them! But they drew the line, he
found, at fifty yards. If he came nearer than that they moved off--with
dignity. I suppose it was the way he had blinded Andoo that made him
think of leaping on the back of one of them. But though Eudena after a
time came out in the open too, and they did some unobtrusive stalking,
things stopped there.

Then one memorable day a new idea came to Ugh-lomi. The horse looks down
and level, but he does not look up. No animals look up--they have too
much common-sense. It was only that fantastic creature, man, could waste
his wits skyward. Ugh-lomi made no philosophical deductions, but he
perceived the thing was so. So he spent a weary day in a beech that
stood in the open, while Eudena stalked. Usually the horses went into
the shade in the heat of the afternoon, but that day the sky was
overcast, and they would not, in spite of Eudena's solicitude.

It was two days after that that Ugh-lomi had his desire. The day was
blazing hot, and the multiplying flies asserted themselves. The horses
stopped grazing before midday, and came into the shadow below him, and
stood in couples nose to tail, flapping.

The Master Horse, by virtue of his heels, came closest to the tree. And
suddenly there was a rustle and a creak, a _thud_.... Then a sharp
chipped flint bit him on the cheek. The Master Horse stumbled, came on
one knee, rose to his feet, and was off like the wind. The air was full
of the whirl of limbs, the prance of hoofs, and snorts of al