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Yet he could not help feeling his advancing years tell upon him more heavily that evening; fearless as he was, his strength was no longer equal when measured with the untiring youthful malevolence of his unbroken mustang.
Shortly after the incident narrated in the last chapter, the squatters of the Mustang Valley lost their leader. Major Hope suddenly announced his intention of quitting the settlement, and returning to the civilised world. Private matters, he said, required his presence there matters which he did not choose to speak of but which would prevent his returning again to reside among them.
Lee and Nielsen and George had their difficulties driving the free horses. Takahashi rode a little buckskin Navajo mustang. An evidence of how extremely short the Jap's legs were made itself plain in the fact that stirrups could not be fixed so he could reach them with his feet. When he used any support at all he stuck his feet through the straps above the stirrups.
"He's got a wall eye," said McKinney, "and I never seen a wall eye in a man, woman, or mustang, that it didn't mean bad. This here bird ain't no Hereford, nor yet a short-horn. He's a dogy that ain't bred right, and he ain't due to act right." All Curly could do was to shake his head, unpersuaded. Meantime, there went on in the little cabin across the arroyo, a reproduction of an old, old drama.
Just as he reached him, he saw that an Indian had him by the bridle, and was trying to draw him along, the mustang resisting, but still yielding a step at a time. In a short time, if the thief was not disturbed, he would have gotten him beyond the possibility of rescue, he seeming more anxious to secure the steed than the scalp of its owner.
The mustang, trained as he was to this sort of hunting, steadily drew up again to the buffalo, which was plunging forward with unabated speed, while Ned held his rifle ready to fire whenever the critical moment should come.
His own mustang being a strayer, he managed to tie him to a small, scrubby bush, after which he moved forward, with caution and stealth, in the direction whence came the whinny that had arrested his attention.
Having ridden a distance of two or three miles, Garey slackened his pace, and put the mustang to a slow walk. A little farther on he again halted, and held his horse at rest, in the beaten path. Rube now came up, and spread the three blankets lengthwise along the ground, and leading westward from the trail. Garey dismounted, and led the animal gently on the blankets.
It stirs the memory to a dangerous degree. One December in the Frio country there was a ratama tree in full bloom, for the winter had been as warm as springtime. That way rode the Frio Kid and his satellite and co-murderer, Mexican Frank. The kid reined in his mustang, and sat in his saddle, thoughtful and grim, with dangerously narrowing eyes.
They have hundreds of villages, between which they are wandering all the year round. They are well armed, and always move in bodies of some hundreds, and even thousands; all active and skilful horsemen, living principally by the chase, and feeding occasionally, during their distant excursions, upon the flesh of the mustang, which, after all, is a delightful food, especially when fat and young.
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