Nagger braced
his huge frame and held the plunging stallion. But the saddle slipped a
little, the cinches cracked. Slone eased the strain by wheeling after
Wildfire.
The horses had worked away from the fire, and Wildfire, free of the stifling
smoke, began to break and lunge and pitch, plunging round Nagger in a circle,
running blindly, but with unerring scent. Slone, by masterly horsemanship,
easily avoided the rushes, and made a pivot of Nagger, round which the wild
horse dashed in his frenzy. It seemed that he no longer tried to free himself.
He lunged to kill.
"Steady, Nagger, old boy!" Slone kept calling. "He'll never get at you. . . .
If he slips that blinder I'll kill him!"
The stallion was a fiend in his fury, quicker than a panther, wonderful on his
feet, and powerful as an ox. But he was at a disadvantage. He could not see.
And Slone, in his spoken intention to kill Wildfire should the scarf slip,
acknowledged that he never would have a chance to master the stallion.
Wildfire was bigger, faster, stronger than Slone had believed, and as for
spirit, that was a grand and fearful thing to see.
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