purr of mowing-machines,
punctuated by occasional sharp cries of the men who were gathering the
hay-crop. On the western side of the valley the hills rose green and
dark, but the eastern side was already burned brown and tan by the sun.

"There is summer, here is spring," Lute said. "Oh, beautiful Sonoma
Valley!"

Her eyes were glistening and her face was radiant with love of the
land. Her gaze wandered on across orchard patches and sweeping vineyard
stretches, seeking out the purple which seemed to hang like a dim smoke
in the wrinkles of the hills and in the more distant canyon gorges. Far
up, among the more rugged crests, where the steep slopes were covered
with manzanita, she caught a glimpse of a clear space where the wild
grass had not yet lost its green.

"Have you ever heard of the secret pasture?" she asked, her eyes still
fixed on the remote green.

A snort of fear brought her eyes back to the man beside her. Dolly,
upreared, with distended nostrils and wild eyes, was pawing the air
madly with her fore legs. Chris threw himself forward against her neck
to keep her from falling backward, and at the same time touched her with
the spurs to compel her to drop her fore feet to the ground in order to
obey the go-ahead impulse of the spurs.

"Why, Dolly, this is most remarkable," Lute began reprovingly.

But, to her surprise, the mare threw her head down, arched her back as
she went up in the air, and, returning, struck the ground stiff-legged
and bunched.

"A genuine buck!" Chris called out, and the next moment the mare was
rising under him in a second buck.

Lute looked on, astounded at the unprecedented conduct of her mare, and
admiring her lover's horsemanship. He was quite cool, and was himself
evidently enjoying the performance. Again and again, half a dozen times,
Dolly arched herself into the air and struck, stiffly bunched. Then she
threw her head straight up and rose on her hind legs, pivoting about and
striking with her fore feet. Lute whirled into safety the horse she was
riding, and as she did so caught a glimpse of Dolly's eyes, with the
look in them of blind brute madness, bulging until it seemed they must
burst from her head. The faint pink in the white of the eyes was gone,
replaced by a white that was like dull marble and that yet flashed as
from some inner fire.

A faint cry of fear, suppressed in the instant of utterance, slipped
past Lute's lips. One hind leg of the mare seemed to coll