Their eyes began to gleam angrily, and they advanced, shaking their
heads, to meet the insolent stranger. The keepers, surprised, drew
together close by the gate; while one of them left hurriedly and ran
towards a building which stood a little way off among the trees.

As the King swept down upon the herd, bigger and blacker than any bull
they had ever seen before, the cows shrank away and stood staring
placidly. They were well fed, and for the time indifferent to all else
in their sheltered world. Still, a fight is a fight, and if there was
going to be one, they were ready enough to look on.

Alas for the right of possession when it runs counter to the right of
might! The two young bulls were at home and in the right, and their
courage was sound. But when that black whirlwind from the fastnesses
of Old Saugamauk fell upon them, it seemed that they had no more
rights at all.

Side by side they confronted the onrushing doom. At the moment of
impact, they reared and struck savagely with their sharp hoofs. But
the gigantic stranger troubled himself with no such details. He merely
fell upon them, like a blind but raging force, irresistible as a
falling hillside and almost as disastrous. They both went down before
him like calves, and rolled over and over, stunned and sprawling.

The completeness of this victory, establishing his supremacy beyond
cavil, should have satisfied the King, especially as this was not the
mating season and there could be no question of rivalry. But his heart
was bursting with injury, and his thirst for vengeance was raging to
be glutted. As the vanquished bulls struggled to recover their feet,
he bounded upon the nearest and trod him down again mercilessly. The
other, meanwhile, fled for his life, stricken with shameless terror;
and the exile, leaving his victim, went thundering in pursuit,
determined that both should be annihilated. It was a terrifying sight,
the black giant, mane erect, neck out-thrust, mouth open, eyes glaring
with implacable fury, sweeping down upon the fugitive with his
terrific strides.

But just then, when another stride would have sufficed, a strange
thing happened! A flying noose settled over the pursuer's head,
tightened, jerked his neck aside, and threw him with a violence that
knocked the wind clean out of his raging body. While his vast lungs
sobbed and gasped to recover the vital air, other nooses whipped about
his legs; and before he could recover himself even