failing wind of
his far-off desert ancestors, he was not aware of any fatigue from his
long swim. Presently, rounding a point of rock which thrust a low spur
out into the surges, he came into a sheltered cove where there was no
surf. The long waves rolled on past the point, while in the cove there
was only a measured, moderate rise and fall of the gray water, like a
quiet breathing, and only a gentle back-wash fringed the black-stoned,
weedy beach with foam. At the head of the cove a shallow stream, running
down through a narrow valley, emptied itself between two little red
sand-spits.

Close beside the stream the white stallion came ashore. As soon as his
feet were quite clear of the uppermost fringe of foam, as soon as he
stood on ground that was not only firm, but dry, he shook himself
violently, tossed his fine head with a whinny of exultation, and turned
a long look of hate and defiance upon the element from which he had
just made his escape. Then at a determined trot he set off up the
valley, eager to leave all sight and sound of the sea as far as possible
behind him.

Reared as he had been on the windy and arid plateau of Northern Spain,
the wanderer was filled with great loneliness in these dark woods of fir
and spruce. An occasional maple in its blaze of autumn scarlet, or a
clump of white birch in shimmering, aerial gold, seen unexpectedly upon
the heavy-shadowed green, startled him like a sudden noise.
Nevertheless, strange though they were, they were trees, and so not
altogether alien to his memory. And the brook, with its eddying pools
and brawling, shallow cascades, that seemed to him a familiar, kindly
thing. It was only the sea that he really feared and hated. So long as
he was sure he was putting the huge surges and loud reefs farther and
farther behind him, he felt a certain measure of content as he pushed
onward deeper and deeper into the serried gloom and silence of the
spruce woods. At last, coming to a little patch of brook-side meadow
where the grass kept short and sweet and green even at this late season,
he stopped his flight, and fell to pasturing.

Late in the afternoon, the even gray mass of cloud which for days had
veiled the sky thinned away and scattered, showing the clear blue of the
north. The sun, near setting, sent long rays of cheerful light down the
narrow valley, bringing out warm, golden bronzes in the massive, dull
green of the fir and spruce and hemlock, and striking sharp fla