r had stolen
cautiously around behind him, evidently to take advantage of this
chance. He swallowed hard. The enemy was stealing upon him. He wanted to
wheel, believed he ought to wheel if he would save himself, but he did
not. Instead, he brought craft into play. He listened patiently,
intensely alert, and bided his time. The breathing came closer, closer
still, and stopped. He heard the enemy swallow. He conquered his longing
to turn, and remained still as death. The gray drew no closer. He seemed
to be waiting, also biding his time. And now it became a test, a matter
of nervous endurance, each waiting for the other. Around them pressed
the desert solitude. There was no sound anywhere. The sun beat down upon
the earth remorselessly. And still Pat waited, but not for long. There
was a soft tread behind him, and he knew that he had won in the contest
of endurance. With the footfalls he heard spasmodic breathing. And yet
he waited. But he was ready to strike--to deal the death-blow. Closer
came the restrained breathing, was close behind him. Then he struck with
all his strength.

And his lightning heels found their mark. He heard the crack of bone and
a long, terrible scream. He wheeled and saw the gray limping away.
Gripped in sudden overwhelming fury, sounding a cry no less shrill than
that of the gray, he leaped upon the enemy, bore him to earth, and,
knowing no mercy, he trampled and slashed the furiously resisting foe
into a bleeding mass. Then he dashed off, believing that it was all
over. He turned toward Stephen and flung up his head to sound a cry of
joy. But he did not sound it, for, taken off his guard, he suddenly
found himself bowled over by the frenzied impact of the gray.

And Stephen, tense with suspense, felt hope sink within him. For the
gray stallion, even with fore leg broken, was smothering the prostrate
Pat in a raging attack. He saw Pat struggle time and again to gain his
feet. At last, only after desperate effort, he saw him rise. He saw him
spring upon the crippled gray and tear his back and neck and withers
until his face and chest were covered with blood. And then--and at sight
of this he went limp in joy and relief--he saw Pat wheel against the
gray and lash out mightily, and he saw the gray drop upon breast and
upper fore legs--hopelessly out of the struggle. For Pat had broken the
second fore leg, and this fiend of the desert was down for all time.

And now Pat did a strange thing. As if i