living might.

Unrest was upon him. Life had become stagnant, a tasteless thing. He
was keen for the open stretches, honing to be gone down the wind. He
fretted and ate out his heart for the freedom of the range. Old Anita,
passing at some work or other, stopped and gazed at him for a
compassionate moment.

"You, too, _grande caballo_," she said, "there is naught but grief at
Last's Holding. _Tharone querida_" she called into the house, "come
here."

Tharon came and stood in the kitchen door.

"What, Anita?" she asked gently.

"El Rey," answered the old woman, "he calls and calls and none come to
him. He, too, needs help, _Corazon_. Why not take him for a run along
the plain? It will help you both."

For a long time the girl stood, considering.

"I have not cared to ride lately, Anita," she said, "but you are
right. El Rey should not be left to fret."

She stepped back in the house, then came out, and she had added
nothing to her attire save her daddy's belt and guns. Without these
she never left the Holding now.

Bareheaded, slender, she was a thing of beauty, and there was a quiet
command about her which subdued the great El Rey himself, the proudest
horse in all the Valley, outside of Courtrey's Ironwoods, Bolt and
Arrow.

Between these three horses there was much comment and discussion,
though they had never been tested out together.

She found a bridle on a corral post, a strong affair of rawhide,
heavily ornamented with silver, its bit a Spanish spade. Without this
she could not hold the stallion, and he was no pet to come at her
caressing call of the double notes.

Only Jim Last himself had ever tamed El Rey to do his bidding by word
of mouth. The horse had had one master. He would never have another.

Even now, when Tharon bridled him and opened the big gate, promising
him his long-desired flight, he seemed not to see her, his beautiful
big eyes looked through, beyond her, as if he sought another. There
was some one for whom he waited, listened.

From a block of wood set in the yard the girl gathered the rein tight
in her hand, balanced a moment, and leaped up astride the shining
back.

With a snort like a pistol shot El Rey flung up his great head, leaped
into the air and was gone. Around the corner of the adobe house he
went, out across the trampled yard, and away along the open to the
south, running level and free. With the first sink-and-lift Tharon had
slipped back a full span. Now she