e
back. His mind flashed back to that--the bare, brown legs. That was
before he had learned that men ride with leather and steel. He waited,
holding himself strongly on leash, ready to turn loose his whole
assortment of tricks--but Perris slipped into place almost as lightly
as that dimly remembered boy in the pasture.

To the side, that line of rushing riders was yelling and waving hats.
And now the light winked and glimmered on naked guns.

"Go!" whispered Perris at his ear. "Alcatraz!"

And the flat of his hand slapped the stallion on the flank. Was not
that the old signal out of the pasture days, calling for a gallop?

He started into a swinging canter. And a faint, half-choked cry of
pleasure from the lips of his rider tingled in his ears. For your born
horseman reads his horse by the first buoyant moment, and what Red Jim
Perris read of the stallion surpassed his fondest dreams. A yell of
wonder rose from Hervey and his charging troop. They had seen Red Jim
come battered and exhausted from his struggle with the stallion the
day before, and now he sat upon the bareback of the chestnut--a
miracle!

"Shoot!" yelled Hervey. "Shoot for the man. You can't hit the damned
hoss!"

In answer, a volley blazed, but what they had seen was too much for
the nerves of even those hardy hunters and expert shots. The volley
sang about the ears of Perris, but he was unscathed, while he felt
Alcatraz gather beneath him and sweep into a racing pace, his ears
flat, his neck extended. For he knew the meaning of that crashing
fire. Fool that he had been not to guess. He who had battled with him
the day before, but battled without man's ordinary tools of torture;
he who had saved him this very day from certain death in the water;
this fellow of the flaming red hair, was in truth so different from
other men, that they hunted him, they hated him, and therefore they
were sending their waspish and invisible messengers of death after
him. For his own safety, for the life of the man on his back, Alcatraz
gave up his full speed.

And Perris bowed low along the stallion's neck and cheered him on. It
was incredible, this thing that was happening. They had reached top
speed, and yet the speed still increased. The chestnut seemed to
settle towards the earth as his stride lengthened. He was not
galloping. He was pouring himself over the ground with an endless
succession of smooth impulses. The wind of that running became a gale.
The blown ma