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Stanley bent over, pelted by flying pebbles and fragments of idle words. Small chance to overhaul the prodigy on that ribbed and splintered hill; Awguan held the sidelong trail at the red pony's heels. They dipped to cross an arroyo; Stan lifted his head and shouted: "Fall off in the sand!" "Damnfido!" wailed the blue boy.
Awguan, top horse and foreman of Stanley's mount, swung pitapat down the winding pass at a brisk fox trot. The gallop, as a road gait, is frowned upon in the cow countries as immature and wasteful of equine energy.
"Young man," he said, "would you know that brown horse Stan was ridin' when you met up with him?" "Awguan? Sure! I'd know him in hell!" said Bobby. "Well, Stan turned that horse loose to rustle for himself, of course. Do you reckon you could stir round and find him for me if your dad can spare you? I want to go to the railroad to-night, and Awguan, he's fresh. My horses are tired."
Sand flashed in rainbow arches against Awguan's brown face he shut his eyes against it; they turned up the hill beyond. A little space ahead showed free of bush or boulder. Awguan took the hillside below the trail, lowered his head, laid his ears back, and bunched his mighty muscles.
The pony's small red head was quite innocent of bridle; the bit was against his red breast, held there by small hands desperate on the reins; the torn headstall flapped rakishly about the red legs. Making the curve at sickening speed, balanced over everlasting nothingness for a moment of breathless equipoise, they took the trail. Awguan thundered after.
He unsaddled in the little corral; he brought a feed of corn for brown Awguan; he brought currycomb and brush and made glossy Awguan's sleek sides, turning him loose at last, with a friendly slap, to seek pasture on Cobre Hills. Then he returned to the Mountain House for the delayed supper. Meantime Mr. Something Dewing held a hurried consultation with Mr.
They came to Cobre before sunup; they found brown Awguan, dejected and sweat-streaked, standing in hip-shot weariness on the hill near his corral. In the corral Stanley's saddle lay in the sand, the blankets sweat-soaked. Unwillingly enough, Holland woke Stan from a smiling sleep to arrest him.
"If you don't want that horse," said Bobby, "don't send me after him." "Now, Jack," said Pete after Bobby had departed on the search for Awguan, "you go away and don't pester me. I want to think." To the processes of thought, for the space of four pipes, he gave aid by hugging his knees, as if he had called them in consultation. Then he summoned Jackson Carr. "How're you fixed for work, Jack?"
As he turned into the level, Stanley's musings were broken in upon by a sudden prodigious clatter. Looking up, he became aware of a terror, rolling portentous down the flinty ridge upon him; a whirlwind streak of billowed dust, shod with sparks, tipped by a hurtling color yet unknown to man; and from the whirlwind issued grievous words. Awguan leaped forward.
The red pony turned mild bright eyes upon brown Awguan, and twitched red velvet ears to express surprise, and wrinkled a polite nose. "Hello! I hadn't noticed you before. Fine day, isn't it?" said the ears. Awguan rolled his wicked eye and snorted. The blue boy shrilled a comment of surprising particulars a hatless boy in denim.
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