hough she
had fallen into the spirit of the thing at once and never uttered even
the faintest whinny yet it would be far easier for the men to hear and
see two than to detect one. Alcatraz strove to drive her back,
sometimes whirling with teeth bared and rushing at her, sometimes
halfrearing as though to strike. But on such occasions she merely
stopped and regarded him with eyes of mild amazement. She knew perfectly
that he would never touched her with tooth or hoof; she also knew that
this was dangerous folly--this badgering of terrible man, but since
Alcatraz was not wise enough to follow her she must even follow him in
spite of his folly.

She stayed half a dozen lengths in the rear, trembling with excitement,
for now they passed the verge of the desert and now they entered a
man-made road bordered with shining fences of men; what retreat was there
if men closed in from the front and the rear? Yet she went on with dainty
and uneasy steps. As for Alcatraz, he had pressed up boldly, close to
the riders, for now the twilight grew thick and it was hard to make out
the glimmering forms before him. Twice he paused; twice he went on.
There was no real purpose in this following. He dared not come too
close, and yet he hoped to harm them. He continued, wrung by a confusion
of dreads and desires.

He was beset with signs of man even in the darkness. Over the
well-watered fields of the ranch he heard the lowing of cattle and now
and again the chorus of the sheep in a nearby pasture land was reawakened
when the bell of the leader tinkled. They were all hateful sounds to
Alcatraz, and every step he made seemed to consign him the more
definitely to the power of the Great Enemy.

In spite of his boldness he lost sight of the riders among the deeper
shadows of the ranch buildings, and he stopped again to consider. The
grey mare came beside him and begged him back with a call softer than a
whisper, but he merely raised his head the higher and stared at the huge
outlines of the sheds and barns. To Alcatraz every one of them was a
fortress filled with danger that might leap up at him. Yet he must not
turn back after having come all this distance, surely. He went on. The
road opened into an unfenced semicircle with corrals on every side and
from one of these enclosures a horse neighed, and there was a brief
sound of many trampling feet. Some of his own kind were playing there;
Alcatraz forgot his hatred a little, forgot man. He went