But he was almost ready to drop.
Two taut lassoes stretched from the pommel of his saddle down a little into a
depression full of brush and cactus and rocks. Then Lucy saw a red horse. He
was down in a bad position. She heard his low, choking heaves. Probably he had
broken legs or back. She could not bear to see a horse in pain. She would do
what was possible, even to the extent of putting him out of his misery, if
nothing else could be done. Yet she scanned the surroundings closely, and
peered into the bushes and behind the rocks before she tried to urge Sage King
closer. He refused to go nearer, and Lucy dismounted.
The red horse was partly hidden by overbending brush. He had plunged into a
hole full of cactus. There was a hackamore round his nose and a tight noose
round his neck. The one round his neck was also round his forelegs. And both
lassoes were held taut by the black horse. A torn and soiled rider's scarf
hung limp round the red horse's nose, kept from falling off by the hackamore.
"A wild horse, a stallion, being broken!" exclaimed Lucy, instantly grasping
the situation.
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