s blindfolded
roan, Charger. He rode bareback except for a blanket strapped upon the
horse; he carried only a long, thick halter, with a loop and a knot.
When August opened the improvised gate, with its sharp bayonet-like
branches of cedar, the Indian rode into the corral. The watchers climbed
to the knoll. Silvermane snorted a blast of fear and anger. August's
huge roan showed uneasiness; he stamped, and shook his head, as if to
rid himself of the blinders.

Into the farthest corner of densely packed cedar boughs Silvermane
pressed himself and watched. The Indian rode around the corral, circling
closer and closer, yet appearing not to see the stallion. Many rounds
he made; closer he got, and always with the same steady gait. Silvermane
left his corner and tried another. The old unwearying round brought
Charger and the Navajo close by him. Silvermane pranced out of his
thicket of boughs; he whistled; he wheeled with his shiny hoofs lifting.
In an hour the Indian was edging the outer circle of the corral, with
the stallion pivoting in the centre, ears laid back, eyes shooting
sparks, fight in every line of him. And the circle narrowed inward.

Suddenly the Navajo sent the roan at Silvermane and threw his halter.
It spread out like a lasso, and the loop went over the head of the
stallion, slipped to the knot and held fast, while the rope tightened.
Silvermane leaped up, forehoofs pawing the air, and his long shrill cry
was neither whistle, snort, nor screech, but all combined. He came down,
missing Charger with his hoofs, sliding off his haunches. The Indian,
his bronze muscles rippling, close-hauled on the rope, making half
hitches round his bony wrist.

In a whirl of dust the roan drew closer to the gray, and Silvermane
began a mad race around the corral. The roan ran with him nose to nose.
When Silvermane saw he could not shake him, he opened his jaws, rolled
back his lip in an ugly snarl, his white teeth glistening, and tried to
bite. But the Indian's moccasined foot shot up under the stallion's ear
and pressed him back. Then the roan hugged Silvermane so close that half
the time the Navajo virtually rode two horses. But for the rigidity
of his arms, and the play and sudden tension of his leg-muscles, the
Indian's work would have appeared commonplace, so dexterous was he, so
perfectly at home in his dangerous seat. Suddenly he whooped and August
Naab hauled back the gate, and the two horses, neck and neck, thundered