He killed a desert bird
now and then, and once a wildcat crossing the valley. Eventually he felt his
strength diminishing, and then he took to digging out the pack-rats and
cooking them. But these, too, were scarce. At length starvation faced Slone.
But he knew he would not starve. Many times he had been within rifle-shot of
Wildfire. And the grim, forbidding thought grew upon him that he must kill the
stallion. The thought seemed involuntary, but his mind rejected it.
Nevertheless, he knew that if he could not catch the stallion he would kill
him. That had been the end of many a desperate rider's pursuit of a coveted
horse.
While Slone kept on his merciless pursuit, never letting Wildfire rest by day,
time went on just as relentlessly. Spring gave way to early summer. The hot
sun bleached the grass; water-holes failed out in the valley, and water could
be found only in the canyons; and the dry winds began to blow the sand. It was
a sandy valley, green and gray only at a distance, and out toward the north
there were no monuments, and the slow heave of sand lifted toward the dim
walls.
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