Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/77



T was in the days when Moytoy of Tellequo was High Chief of the Cherokee nation that the wild chestnut stallion known afterwards as Northwind left the savannahs of the Choctaw country and traveled to the Overhills of the Cherokees. He made this long journey because the Choctaw horse-hunters had been pressing him hard. A rumor had run through the tribe, started perhaps by some learned conjurer or medicine man, that the tall, long-maned chestnut stallion who was king of the wild horse herds was descended from the famous steed which the Prince Soto rode when, many years before, he led his Spaniards through the Choctaw lands far into the Mississippi wilderness and perished there.

This rumor sharpened the eagerness of the younger braves, for it was well known that Soto's horse had magic in him. That spring they hunted the wild stallion more persistently than ever; and at last, taking two sorrel mares with him, he struck northeastward, seeking safer pastures.

He did not find them in the Overhills, as the