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Updated: June 9, 2025
But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of Wildfire's hoof brought back the old thrill. "This place fits you, Wildfire," muttered Slone, dismounting. He started down, leading Nagger. The mustang followed. Slone kept to the wall side of the trail, fearing the horses might slip.
Lucy looked away from the dark, staring eyes. A light in them confused her. "Never mind me. You say you were weak? Have you been ill?" "No, miss, just starved.... I starved on Wildfire's trail." Lucy ran to her saddle and got the biscuits out of the pockets of her coat, and she ran back to the rider. "Here. I never thought. Oh, you've had a hard time of it! I understand.
Evidently they were numerous. A lion country was always a deer country, for the lions followed the deer. Slone was packed and saddled and on his way before the sun reddened the canyon wall. He walked the horses. From time to time he saw signs of Wildfire's consistent progress. The canyon narrowed and the walls grew lower and the grass increased. There was a decided ascent all the time.
"We will wait here until the folk are a' in the church they ca' the kirk a church in England, Jeanie, be sure you mind that for if I was gaun forward amang them, a' the gaitts o' boys and lasses wad be crying at Madge Wildfire's tail, the little hell-rakers! and the beadle would be as hard upon us as if it was our fault.
"By G d I got a rope on him!" cried Slone, in hoarse pants. He stared, unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight unreal like the slow, grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That horrible scream could not be the scream of a horse.
Then letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of the stallion far down. Hand over hand Slone closed in on the horse. He leaped on Wildfire's head, pressed it down, and, holding it down on the sand with his knees, with swift fingers he tied the nose in a hackamore an improvised halter.
And here were patches of sage, fresh and pungent, and long reaches of bleached grass. It was the edge of a forest. Wildfire's trail went on. Slone came at length to a group of pines, and here he found the remains of a camp fire, and some flint arrow-heads. Indians had been in there, probably having come from the opposite direction to Slone's.
That was the question hard to get out. Slone raised eyes dark with pain, yet they flashed as he looked straight up into Bostil's face. "Wildfire's dead!" "DEAD!" ejaculated Bostil. Another moment of strained exciting suspense. "Shot?" he went on. "No." "What killed him?" "The King, sir! ... Killed him on his feet!" Bostil's heavy jaw bulged and quivered.
Madge Wildfire's entrance had rendered him apprehensive of some disturbance, to provide against which, as far as possible, he often turned his eyes to the part of the church where Jeanie and she were placed, and became soon aware that, although the loss of her head-gear, and the awkwardness of her situation, had given an uncommon and anxious air to the features of the former, yet she was in a state of mind very different from that of her companion.
From this perch he had made a magnificent spring Slone estimating it to be forty feet but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire's tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the lion, and then lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from Wildfire's trail told the futility of that stalk.
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