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Ratty M'Gill was the culprit, of course; nor did he hear Frances' cry as she arrived at the corral. He had bestridden the nervous pinto and Molly was "acting up." Ratty had his rope around her neck and a loop around her lower jaw, as Indians guide their half-wild steeds. At every bound the puncher jerked the pony's jaw downward and raked her flanks with his cruel spurs.
With the waiting coyotes in mind, I leaned my wheel against a bowlder and went to its rescue. Several things happened at once. The half-wild range cow misunderstood my good intentions. She was accustomed to seeing men on horseback; and one afoot was strange. She charged headlong. I dodged quickly aside but not in time to escape entirely. She raked me with her sharp horns.
From distant Mexican settlements came natives in ramshackle wagons and driving half-wild ponies. Out of the hills came sheep-herders and prospectors. The word of big wages ran everywhere. The drive was on.
As the door closed after them, Count Tristan turned, as though to assure himself that it was shut, then looked at Maurice significantly and nodded his head, while a smile brightened his countenance. It was so long since Maurice had seen him smile that even that strange, half-wild, inexplicable kindling up of the wan face was pleasant to behold.
On the llanos, or great plains, that extend northward from the Amazon and Orinoco that is, in the provinces of Venezuela other droves of wild horses exist; and these, along with half-wild oxen, form the sole property and pursuit of a class of men called Llaneros, who in many respects resemble the Gauchos.
The thought of the half-wild cattle we would meet terrified me, but he was anxious for my company that day and assured me that he could see no herd in that direction and he would be careful to give a wide berth to anything with horns we might come upon.
Under these genial suns, with such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out, glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness.
She knew that Redfield was right, and yet that world of the past the world of the swift herdsman and his trampling, long-horned, half-wild kine still appealed to her imagination. The West of her girlhood seemed heroic in memory; even the quiet account of it to which she had just listened could not conceal its epic largeness of movement.
He took no thought of destination and satisfied himself with the physical exertion of the laborious going. His heart pounded faster as he attained the altitude of the pine woods where he seemed to have left humanity behind him. Once or twice he saw a shy, half-wild child who fled from its task of gathering fagots at his approach, to gaze at him out of startled eyes from a safe distance.
During the whole of their journey through the woods, which did not come to an end until long after four o'clock that afternoon, the negro guide never once spoke to the boys unless he was first spoken to, nor did they see any living' thing except a drove of half-wild hogs, which fled precipitately at their approach.
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