At his shrill whistle Nagger bounded toward him, obedient, but snorting, with ears laid back.He halted.A second whistle started him again.Slone finally dug himself out of the sand, pulled the lassoes out, and ran the length of them toward Nagger.The black showed both fear and fight.His eyes roiled and he half shied away.
"Come on!" called Slone, harshly.
He got a hand on the horse, pulled him round, and, mounting in a flash, wound both lassoes round the pommel of the saddle.
"Haul him out, Nagger, old boy!" cried Slone, and he dug spurs into the black.
One plunge of Nagger's slid the stallion out of the sand.Snorting, wild, blinded, Wildfire got up, shaking in every limb.He could not see his enemies.
The blowing smoke, right in his nose, made scent impossible.But in the taut lassoes he sensed the direction of his captors.He plunged, rearing at the end of the plunge, and struck out viciously with his hoofs.Slone, quick with spur and bridle, swerved Nagger aside and Wildfire, off his balance, went down with a crash.Slone dragged him, stretched him out, pulled him over twice before he got forefeet planted.Once up, he reared again, screeching his rage, striking wildly with his hoofs.Slone wheeled aside and toppled him over again.
"Wildfire, it's no fair fight," he called, grimly."But you led me a chase..
..An' you learn right now I'm boss!"
Again he dragged the stallion.He was ruthless.He would have to be so, stopping just short of maiming or killing the horse, else he would never break him.But Wildfire was nimble.He got to his feet and this time he lunged out.
Nagger, powerful as he was, could not sustain the tremendous shock, and went down.Slone saved himself with a rider's supple skill, falling clear of the horse, and he leaped again into the saddle as Nagger pounded up.Nagger braced his huge frame and held the plunging stallion.But the saddle slipped a little, the cinches cracked.Slone eased the strain by wheeling after Wildfire.
The horses had worked away from the fire, and Wildfire, free of the stifling smoke, began to break and lunge and pitch, plunging round Nagger in a circle, running blindly, but with unerring scent.Slone, by masterly horsemanship, easily avoided the rushes, and made a pivot of Nagger, round which the wild horse dashed in his frenzy.It seemed that he no longer tried to free himself.
He lunged to kill.
"Steady, Nagger, old boy!" Slone kept calling."He'll never get at you....
If he slips that blinder I'll kill him!"
The stallion was a fiend in his fury, quicker than a panther, wonderful on his feet, and powerful as an ox.But he was at a disadvantage.He could not see.
And Slone, in his spoken intention to kill Wildfire should the scarf slip, acknowledged that he never would have a chance to master the stallion.
Wildfire was bigger, faster, stronger than Slone had believed, and as for spirit, that was a grand and fearful thing to see.
The soft sand in the pass was plowed deep before Wildfire paused in his mad plunges.He was wet and heaving.His red coat seemed to blaze.His mane stood up and his ears lay flat.
Slone uncoiled the lassoes from the pommel and slacked them a little.Wildfire stood up, striking at the air, snorting fiercely.Slone tried to wheel Nagger in close behind the stallion.Both horse and man narrowly escaped the vicious hoofs.But Slone had closed in.He took a desperate chance and spurred Nagger in a single leap as Wildfire reared again.The horses collided.Slone hauled the lassoes tight.The impact threw Wildfire off his balance, just as Slone had calculated, and as the stallion plunged down on four feet Slone spurred Nagger close against him.Wildfire was a little in the lead.He could only half rear now, for the heaving, moving Nagger, always against him, jostled him down, and Slone's iron arm hauled on the short ropes.When Wildfire turned to bite, Slone knocked the vicious nose back with a long swing of his fist.
Up the pass the horses plunged.With a rider's wild joy Slone saw the long green-and-gray valley, and the isolated monuments in the distance.There, on that wide stretch, he would break Wildfire.How marvelously luck had favored him at the last!
"Run, you red devil!" Slone called."Drag us around now till you're done!"They left the pass and swept out upon the waste of sage.Slone realized, from the stinging of the sweet wind in his face, that Nagger was being pulled along at a tremendous pace.The faithful black could never have made the wind cut so.Lower the wild stallion stretched and swifter he ran, till it seemed to Slone that death must end that thunderbolt race.
