hen went back onto a hilltop to
sleep.

It was full day before he rose and started on again, and to keep his
strength for the next stage of the journey, he ate busily first on the
lee side of a hill where the grass was thickest and tenderest. Between
mouthfuls he raised his head to gaze down on his new-found land. It was
a day of clouds, thin sheetings and dense cumulus masses sweeping on the
west wind and breaking against the mountains. Alcatraz could not see the
crests over which he had climbed the night before, so thick were those
breaking ranks of clouds, but the plateau beneath him was dotted with
yellow sunshine and in the day it filled to the full the promise of the
moonlit night. He saw wide stretches of meadow; he saw hills sharpsided
and smoothly rolling--places to climb with labor and places to gallop at
ease. He saw streams that promised drink at will; he saw clumps and
groves of trees for shelter from sun or storm. All that a horse could
will was here, beyond imaginings. Alcatraz lifted his beautiful head and
neighed across the lowlands.

There was no answer. His kingdom silently awaited his coming so he
struck out at a sharp pace. The run of the day before, in place of
stiffening him, had put him in racing trim and he went like the wind. He
was in playful mood. He danced and shied as each cloud-shadow struck
him, a dim figure in the shade but shining red-chestnut in the sun
patches. On every hand he saw dozens of places where he would have
stopped willingly had not more distant beauties lured him on. There were
hills whose tops would serve him as watch towers in time of need. There
were meadows of soft soil where the grass grew long and rank and others
where it was a sweeter and finer growth; but both had their places in
his diet and must be remembered so Alcatraz tried to file them away in
his mind. But who could remember single jewels in a great treasure? He
was like a child chasing butterflies and continually lured from the
pursuit of one to that of another still brighter. So he came in his
kingly progress to the first blot on the landscape, the first bar, the
first hindrance.

Sinuous and swift curving as a snake it twisted over hilltops and dipped
across hollows, three streaks of silver light one above the other, and
endless. The ears of Alcatraz flattened. He knew barb-wire fences of old
and he knew they meant man and domination of man. The scars of whip and
spur stung him afresh. The old sullen h