Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/157

Rh passed through the room below Wilbur called after them: "The dance?"

"Yes."

"Wait and go with me."

"We ride in a roundabout way."

They were through the door as Pierre called back, and a moment later the hoofs of their horses scattered the gravel down the hillside. Jacqueline rode a black stallion sired by her father's mighty Thunder, who had grown old but still could do the work of three ordinary horses in carrying the great bulk of his master. The son of Thunder was little like his sire, but a slender-limbed racer, graceful, nervous, eager. A clumsy rider would have ruined the horse in a single day's hard work among the trails of the mountain-desert, but Jacqueline, fairly reading the mind of the black, nursed his strength when it was needed and let him run free and swift when the ground before him was level.

Now she picked her course dexterously down the hillside with the cream-colored mare of Pierre following half a length behind.

After the first down-pitch of ground was covered they passed into difficult terrain, and for half an hour went at a jog trot, winding in and out among the rocks, climbing steadily up and up through the hills.

Here the ground opened up again, and they roved on at a free gallop, the black always half a length in front. In all the length of the mountain-desert there was no other picture which could compare with