And when
fiercely he jerked back on the rope, the noose closed tight round Wildfire's
neck.
"By G--d--I--got--a rope--on him!" cried Slone, in hoarse pants.
He stared, unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight--unreal like the slow,
grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a demon
head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That horrible
scream could not be the scream of a horse.
Slone was a wild-horse hunter, a rider, and when that second of incredulity
flashed by, then came the moment of triumph. No moment could ever equal that
one, when he realized he stood there with a rope around that grand stallion's
neck. All the days and the miles and the toil and the endurance and the
hopelessness and the hunger were paid for in that moment. His heart seemed too
large for his breast.
"I tracked--you!" he cried, savagely. "I stayed--with you! . . . An' I got a
rope--on you! An'--I'll ride you--you red devil!"
The passion of the man was intense. That endless, racking pursuit had brought
out all the hardness the desert had engendered in him.
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