Page:Son of the wind.djvu/148

RV 136 "Well, what did you think it was?" he demanded.

"Oh, a lion, a tiger, an elephant!" She began to shake with helpless laughter. Hysteria was the note in it. "You looked so frightened!" she gasped.

Carron's pulses indeed were going fifty to the minute. "You frightened me," he declared.

The black horse was surveying them, nostrils quivering with suspicion. All at once he wheeled and galloped across the open space, and with a graceful, sailing motion vanished through another overlapping fold of hills.

It was a spirited sight. The animal was more than usually well made; but Blanche Rader's glance followed it almost with indifference. "I have never seen him before," she observed. "I wonder who owns him."

"Sure he isn't one of those fellows we've been talking about?" Carron tested her.

"Never!" Her full glance scorned his ignorance. "Didn't you see—he stood and looked at us. And then, when he ran, he wasn't terrified as they are; and he is too small! Oh, he's nothing like, he isn't the same thing!" She looked at Carron doubtfully. "I begin to believe you have never seen a wild horse!"