close behind him. Then he struck with all his
strength.

And his lightning heels found their mark. He
heard the crack of bone and a long, terrible scream.
He wheeled and saw the gray limping away.
Gripped in sudden overwhelming fury, sounding
a cry no less shrill than that of the gray, he
leaped upon the enemy, bore him to earth, and,
knowing no mercy, he,trampled and slashed the
furiously resisting foe into a bleeding mass. Then
he dashed off, believing that it was all over. He
turned toward Stephen and flung up his head to
sound a cry of joy. But he did not sound it, for,
taken off his guard, he suddenly found himself
bowled over by the frenzied impact of the gray.

And Stephen, tense with suspense, felt hope
sink within him. For the gray stallion, even with
fore leg broken, was smothering the prostrate Pat
in a raging attack. He saw Pat struggle time and
again to gain his feet. At last, only after desperate
effort, he saw him rise. He saw him
spring upon the crippled gray and tear his back
and neck and withers until his face and chest
were covered with blood. And then -- and at
sight of this he went limp in joy and relief -- he
saw Pat wheel against the gray and lash out
mightily, and he saw the gray drop upon breast
and upper fore legs -- hopelessly out of the struggle.
For Pat had broken the second fore leg, and
this fiend of the desert was down for all time.

And now Pat did a strange thing. As if it suddenly
came to him that he had done a forbidden.

[[277]]

p276 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p277w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p278

v?