lightly, well-contained, to meet
the swiftly advancing gray stallion. Then events moved with a terrible
unreality.

The gray screamed defiantly and leaped toward Pat faster and faster. Pat
braced his legs to meet the assault. But no assault came. With rare
craft the gray suddenly checked himself, coming to a full stop two
lengths away. Here, with ears flat and lashing tail, he glared at Pat,
who, equally tense, returned defiance. Thus they stood in the desert,
quiet, measuring each other, while Stephen, crouched, watching them,
remembering the lifeless form beside him, prayed that Pat would prove
equal to the mighty stallion. He had no gun. Pat alone could save him.
If Pat were conquered nothing remained but death for both. For with Pat
dead--and surely this masterful foe would stop at nothing short of
death--Stephen realized that he himself, in his present condition, would
never see civilization again. He could not walk the distance even if he
knew the way, nor could he hope to mount the victorious stallion, should
Pat be defeated, because only one man had done that, and that man lay
dead beside him. The thought of being alone in the desert with the dead
struck chill to his heart. He recalled his first ride with Helen, and
her tales of men and horses in the early days, and what it meant to a
man to have his horse stolen from him. It was all clear to him now, and
he clenched his sound hand till the nails cut the flesh. Unless Pat
fought a successful fight he was doomed to die of thirst, even if the
stallion did not attack him. As he looked at Pat, his only hope in this
dread situation, he prayed harder and more fervently than before that
his champion would win.

Pat thrilled with the sense of coming battle, but he did not fear this
horse. He remembered that once he had struck down a rival, and before
that he had twice given successful battle to men--to a finish with the
Mexican hostler, another time when he had brought his enemy to respect
and consider him. Therefore he had no reason to fear this horse, even
though he saw in the gray's splendid figure an enemy to be carefully
considered. But not for an instant did Pat relax. For this was a crafty
foe, as shown by his sudden halt, which Pat knew was the prelude to a
swift attack. So he watched with keen alertness the flattened ears, the
lashing tail--his own muscles held rigid, waiting.

The gray began a cautious approach. He put forward his legs one after
another sl