in? You'll
ride straight across the mountains when the morning comes?"

"I promise," answered Perris.

But afterwards, as he watched her drift away through the darkness
calling back to him from time to time until her voice dwindled to a
bird-note and then faded away, Red Jim prayed in his heart of hearts
that he would not chance upon sight of the stallion in the morning,
for if he did, he knew that the first solemn promise of his life would
be broken.

CHAPTER XXIII

LOBO

The dawn of the next day came cold and grey about Alcatraz, grey
because the sheeted clouds that promised a storm were covering the
sky, and cold with a wind out of the north. When he lifted his head,
he saw where the first rains had covered the slopes of the Eagle
Mountains with tenderest green, and looking higher, the snows were
gathering on the summits. The prophetic thickening of his coat
foretold a hard winter.

Now he was on watch with the mares in the hollow behind and himself on
the crest rarely turning his head from a wisp of smoke which rose far
south. He knew what that meant. Red Perris was on his trail again,
and this was the morning-fire of the Great Enemy. He had lain on the
ground like a dead man the day before. Now he was risen to battle
again! Instinctively he swung his head and looked at the place where
the saddle had rested the day before, the saddle which he had worked
off with so much wild rolling and scraping against rocks.

He nibbled the grass as he watched, or now and again jerked up his
head to catch the scents which blow truer in the upper air-currents.

It was on one of these occasions that he caught an odor only vaguely
known to him, and known as a danger. He had never been able to label
it but he knew that when the grey mare caught such a scent she was
even more perturbed than when man rode into view. So now he breathed
deep, his great eyes shining with excitement. What could this danger
be which was more to be dreaded than the Great Enemy? Yielding to
curiosity, he headed straight up wind to make sure.

No doubt he thereby gave proof that he was unfitted to lead wild
horses in the mountains. The wise black of former days, or the grey
mare now, would never have stopped to question, but gathering the herd
with the alarm call, they would have busied themselves with unrolling
mile after mile behind their flying heels. Alcatraz increased his walk
to a trot, promptly lost the scent altogether, and headed onto