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As soon as I can consult with Johnnie, we will see about the matter." Himes let go the roan's bridle and staggered back a pace or two, open-mouthed, staring. The skies had fallen. His heavy mind turned slowly toward resentment against Buckheath. He wished the younger conspirator were here to take his share. Then the door opened and Shade himself came out wiping his mouth.
Drew, his thumb still planted in the hole which was becoming Shawnee's death, nodded to the guard. They made it, and Drew kneed the roan closer to the extra horse Boyd led, slinging his saddlebags across to the other mount. Then he dismounted, releasing his hold on the roan's wound.
He jerked his thumb at the roan's shoulder and flanks where not a drop of blood appeared; his hide would have been tattered indeed if Harris had driven home his rowels each time he swung his feet. "Nice ride." Harris walked back to a small group that had not yet mounted, Morrow among them.
Both were exchanging affectionate farewells with a young girl, whose voice sounded deeper than the halfgrown boy's. As the older gentleman thrust his hand through the roan's mane and was already lifting his foot to put it in the stirrup, the young girl, who had remained in the entry, came out into the street, laid her hand on Wibisma's arm, and said: "One word more, uncle, but to you alone."
The ninth horse in my mount, a roan, for some unknown reason sulked at starting, then bolted out on the prairie, but got away with the loss of only about ten seconds, running the half mile like a scared wolf. Until it came the roan's turn to go again, no untoward incident happened, friendly timekeepers posting me at every change of mounts.
Each ship having a quota of seamen and pickpockets allotted to her in due proportion, the men were ordered down into the boats; and in less than an hour Newton found himself on board of a fine frigate lying in the Sound, with her fore-topsail loose, as a signal of her immediate departure. "Tis roan's bold task the gen'rous strife to try, But in the hands of God is victory."
My other horse, a dun, was soon taken as a sergeant's mount, and I had to take on an Argentine re-mount, a rough, stupid little mare, with kicking and biting propensities which quite threw the roan's into the shade. She also had a peg of ignominy, and three times a day I had to dance perilously round my precious pair with a tentative body-brush and hoof-pick.
I could not blame my "informant;" but the state of things was enough to chafe even a meek temper: the roan's long legs had begun to tire under the unwonted weight before I reached Newmarket, and he rolled fearfully in the slowest trot; yet I had sworn not to sleep before I laid my hand on Falcon's mane, and I felt, with every fresh check, more savagely determined to keep the trail as long as horse-flesh would last under me.
It was only ten minutes, but while it lasted the cursing of Nash was loud and steady, mixed with the crack of his murderous quirt against the roan's flanks. The bucking ended as quickly as it had begun, and they started at a long canter over the trail.
He had to place the muzzle of the gun against the roan's temple and pull the trigger. When he turned his back he was the only living thing within the white arms of the hills. Yet, when the next hill was behind him, he had already forgotten the second life which he put out that night, for regret is the one sorrow which never dodges the footsteps of the hunted.
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