Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/220

216 the end of the run of the day before. He was fresher now. Andrew could tell that easily by the stretch of his gallop and the evenness of his pace as he rushed across the slope. He gave the word to Sally. She tossed up her head in mute rebellion at this new call for a race, and then broke into a canter whose first few strides, by way of showing her anger, were as choppy and lifeless as the stride of a plow horse.

That was the beginning of the famous ride from the Las Casas mountains to the Roydon range, and all the distance across the Roydon valley. As a bird flies, it was a full seventy miles; as the horses galloped, winding to and fro to find the easier footing, it must have been a full eighty miles. That distance the gray horse and the bay ran in exactly nine hours and fifty-five minutes. To this time Hal Dozier swore in after days, and, though many a man has shaken his head over the tale, this is the story as it now runs current in the mountain desert, and this is the tale which two big stone pillars confirm. For Hal Dozier put them up to commemorate the run of great Gray Peter on this day—a pillar to mark the start and a pillar to mark the finish. The time is inscribed on the finish post.

It started with a five-mile sprint—literally five miles of hot racing in which each horse did its best. And in that five miles Gray Peter would most unquestionably have won had not one bit of luck fallen the mare. A hedge of young evergreen streaked before Sally, and Andrew put her at the mark; she cleared it like a bird, jumping easily and landing in her stride. It was not the first time she had jumped with Andrew.

But Gray Peter was not a steeplechaser. He had not been trained to it, and he refused. His rider had to whirl and go up the line of shrubs until he found a place