ore she saw. The very leanness of
Alcatraz made it easier to trace his running-muscles; she estimated,
too, the ample girth at the cinches where size means wind.
"And that's Alcatraz?" she murmured.
"That is all," said the pleasant Cordova.
"May I go into the corral and look him over at close range? I never feel
that I know a horse till I get my hands on it."
She was about to dismount when she saw that the Mexican was hesitating
and she settled back in the saddle, flushed with displeasure.
"No," said Cordova, "that would not be good. You will see!"
He smiled again and rising, he sauntered to the fence and turned about
with his shoulders resting against the upper bar, his back to the
stallion. As he did so, Alcatraz put forward his ears, which, in
connection with the dullness of his eyes, gave him a peculiarly foolish
look.
"You will see a thing, senorita!" the Mexican was chuckling.
It came without warning. Alcatraz turned with the speed of a whiplash
curling and drove straight at the place where his master leaned.
Marianne's cry of alarm was not needed. Cordova had already started, but
even so he barely escaped. The chestnut on braced legs skidded to the
fence, his teeth snapping short inches from the back of his master. His
failure maddened Alcatraz. He reminded Marianne of the antics of a cat
when in her play with the mouse she tosses her victim a little too far
away and wheels to find her prospective meal disappearing down a hole.
In exactly similar wise the stallion went around the corral in a whirl
of dust, rearing, lashing out with hind legs and striking with fore,
catching imaginary things in his teeth and shaking them to pieces. When
the fury diminished he began to glide up and down the fence, and there
was something so feline in the grace of those long steps and the
intentness with which the brute watched Cordova that the girl remembered
a new-brought tiger in the zoo. Also, rage had poured him full of such
strength that through the dust cloud she caught again glimpses of that
first perfection.
He came at last to a stop, but he faced his owner with a look of steady
hate. The latter returned the gaze with interest, stroking his face and
snarling: "Once more, red devil, eh? Once more you miss? Bah! But I, I
shall not miss!"
It was not as one will talk to a dumb beast, for there was no mistaking
the vicious earnestness of Cordova, and now the girl made out that he
was caressing a long, white
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