and spoil the Egyptian, alias
the white man, if only the colt were properly trained and ridden. He
applied to Angus for help, as being the son of his tillikum, Adam
Mackay. He invited him out to inspect the horse.

Angus went and took Dave Rennie. The horse which Paul Sam led forth for
inspection was a big, slashing four-year-old, with a good head, an
honest eye, deep chest and clean, flat limbs. Every line of him told of
power and endurance; and to the eye which could translate power into
terms of speed, of the latter as well. Rennie whistled softly.

"He looks to me like he had real blood in him. He's a weight carrier.
English hunting stock, I sh'd say. Some of 'em can run, all right. If
the mare was in foal when she was brought out, I wouldn't wonder if this
boy's sire was real class. He looks it." The big horse reached out a
twitching muzzle to investigate. Rennie stroked the velvet nose. "Kind
as a kitten, too. He seems to have the build, but that don't say he can
run."

"Him run," Paul Sam affirmed. "You ride him."

He cinched an old stock saddle on the chestnut, and Rennie mounted. He
cantered easily across the flat and back.

"He's easy as an old rocker and light as a driftin' cloud," he said.
"The bit worries him, though. He needs rubber. You get on him, and see
what a real horse feels like."

Angus lengthened the stirrups and swung up. As soon as he felt the
motion he knew he was astride a wondrous piece of mechanism. The
undulating lift of the big chestnut was as easy and effortless and
sustained as a smooth, rolling swell. Of his own accord the horse
quickened his pace from the easy sling of the canter to a long,
stretching, hand-gallop, drawing great lungfuls of air, shaking his
head, rejoicing in his own motion, glad to be doing the work he was
fitted for. At the end of the little flat Angus pulled up and turned.
Rennie's distant shout came faintly:

"Let him come!"

Breathing the horse for a moment, Angus loosed him from the canter to
the gallop and then, as he felt the coil and uncoil of the splendid
muscles, and the swell and quiver of the body, and the increasing reach
and stretch of the ever-quickening stride, he let him run.

All his life Angus had ridden ponies, cayuses, but now he had a new
experience. The big chestnut, as he was given his head, made half a
dozen great bounds and then, steadying himself, he stretched his neck,
his body seemed to sink and straighten, and with muzzle almo