Slone sat astride
Nagger in the mouth of this pass--a wash a few yards wide, walled by broken,
rough rock on one side and an insurmountable slope on the other.
"If this hole was only little, now," sighed Slone, as he gazed at the
sweeping, shimmering oval floor, "I might have a chance. But down there--we
couldn't get near him."
There was no water in that dry bowl. Slone reflected on the uselessness of
keeping Wildfire down there, because Nagger could not go without water as long
as Wildfire. For the first time Slone hesitated. It seemed merciless to Nagger
to drive him down into this hot, windy hole. The wind blew from the west, and
it swooped up the slope, hot, with the odor of dry, dead grass.
But that hot wind stirred Slone with an idea, and suddenly he was tense,
excited, glowing, yet grim and hard.
"Wildfire, I'll make you run with your namesake in that high grass," called
Slone. The speech was full of bitter failure, of regret, of the hardness of a
rider who could not give up the horse to freedom.
Slone meant to ride down there and fire the long grass.
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