iver Jordan. Let it be, then,
as the man wished. He had known how to save a horse from the Little
Smoky. He would be wise enough to keep them both safe even from other
men, and so, along the trail towards the ranch, the chestnut ran with
a gait as gentle as the swing and light fall of a ground swell in
mid-ocean.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE END OF THE RACE

Far behind him he could see the pursuers driving their horses at a
killing gallop. He answered their spurt and held them safely in the
distance with the very slightest of efforts. All his care was given
to picking out the easiest way, and avoiding jutting rocks and sharp
turns which might unsettle the rider. Just as, in those dim old
days in the pasture, when the short brown legs of the boy could not
encompass him enough to gain a secure grip, he used to halt gently,
and turn gently, for fear of unseating the urchin. How far more
cautious was his maneuvering now! Here on his back was the power which
had saved him from the river. Here on his back was he whose trailing
fingers had given him his first caress.

He had no power of reason in his poor blind brain to teach him the why
and the wherefore. But he had that overmastering impulse which lives
in every gentle-blooded horse--the great desire to serve. A mustang
would have been incapable of such a thing, but in Alcatraz flowed the
pure strain of the thoroughbred, tracing back to the old desert stock
where the horse lives in the tent of his master, the most cherished
member of the family. There was in him dim knowledge of events through
which he himself had never passed. By the very lines of his blood
there was bred in him a need for human affection and human care, just
as there was bred in him the keen heart of the racer. And now he knew
to the full that exquisite delight of service with the very life of a
helpless man given into his keeping.

One ear he canted back to the pain-roughened voice which spoke at his
ear. The voice was growing weaker and weaker, just as the grip of the
legs was decreasing, and the hands were tangled less firmly in his
mane, but now the bright-colored buildings of the ranch appeared
through the trees. They were passing between the deadly rows of barbed
wire with far-off mutter of the pursuing horses beating at his ear and
telling him that all escape was cut off. Yet still the man held him to
the way through a mingling of trails thick with the scents of man, of
man-ridden horses. The burd