Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/207



EOPLE in telling that story long afterward, and it became one of the favorite tales connected with Andrew Lanning, attributed the whole maneuver to an outbreak of madness. Just as madness appeared the campaign of Napoleon when he dropped over the Alps into Italy, and, while was taking Genoa from heroic, appeared quietly on that unfortunate general's communications and then blotted him out at Marengo. And that campaign would have been judged madness instead of genius if it had not worked.

Retrospection made Andrew Lanning's coming to Los Toros a mad freak, whereas it was in reality a very clever stroke. Hal Dozier would have been on the road five hours before if he had not been held up in the matter of horses, but this is to tell the story out of turn.

Andrew saddled the mare and sent her back swiftly out of the plain, over the hills, and then dropped her down into the valley of the Little Silver River until he reached the grove of trees just outside Los Toros—some four hundred yards, say, from the little group of houses. He then took off his belt, hung it over the pommel, fastened the reins to the belt, and turned away. Sally would stay where he left her—unless some one else tried to get to her head, and then she would fight like a wild cat. He knew that, and he therefore started for Los Toros with his line of communications sufficiently guarded.