Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/83

 many details. The tale appealed to him, for he was a lover of horses; and this story of the feud between Northwind, the wild stallion, and Manito-Kinibic, the Raven's roan, concerned two horses: which were paladins of their kind.

For the hunt which began that morning in Long Meadow became in large measure a contest between these two. It happened that the Raven had returned not long before from a peace mission to the Choctaws, and while in their country he had heard of the wonderful wild horse which was said to have in him the blood of the Prince Soto's steed and which had vanished from the savannahs after defying all attempts to capture him. In the Overhills wild horses were rare. When the Raven found the tracks of three of them near Long Meadow about sunset one May day, he thought it worth while to sleep that night near the meadow's edge and have a look at the horses in the morning.

So at dawn he had tried to stalk them in their beds; and the moment he saw the wild stallion rise from his sleeping place in the grass he knew that the great chestnut horse of which the Choctaws had spoken stood before him. That morning in Long Meadow he knew also that he could not rest until he had taken this matchless wild horse for his own.

It would be a long hunt, for the stallion would not linger in the Overhills. Small bands of wild