Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-09-14
CHAPTER TX

81
the highway. A car passed, filed
with noisy, ugly-looking men. Going
up the hill by the overpass, one Of
them had shouted, "See that old
mare? Bet I can hit her!"
He had taken his gun, stood up in
the car, and pulled the trigger.
The section gang working on the
railroad that ran alongside the high
way saw the whole thing. They
saw the man shoot, saw the mare
leap spasmodically, then 60 down
with crash, heard the burst of rau-
cous laughter from the men, saw the
car speed up and vanish over the
hill.
Ken began to shake in bed. A
white colt in a band of dark horses
how easy to mark and single out!
However, there would have been. the
body-they hadn't found any body.
There was some comfort in that.
Goblin, meanwhile, was feeding
In lush pastures south of the border.
Though in a single afternoons play
on the Saddle Back he or any one
OF the yearlings could run twenty
miles and not know it, he had taken
full week to work his way to the
foot of the Buckhorn Range. There
was SO much to see on the way. So
many dells and ravines to explore.
So many hillocks to stand upon,
gazing and studying and sniffing-so
wide country-so many bands Of
antelope and elk. The grass in ev-
cry meadow tasted different.
It was in this fashion that the Cob
lin moved. After his first start
southwark he had just drifted. Now
here he was.
It was the river that interest
ed him. He had smelled it for
miles before he reached it. He had
never seen anything like it. 1t took
him long time to decide that there
was nothing dangerous about it,
though it moved. 1t plunged and
leaped. 1t hurled itself over rocks.
1t tossed chunks of itself into the
air. 1t was alive therefore. 1t had
voice too. A loud voice that nev-
er ceased it's burble of sound. In
cessantly, it talked, whispered, CUR
gled, chuckled.
Having power in himself, he knew
that there was power in the river.
Facing it, standing there on the
brink, he felt that it challenged him,
and he gathered himself to fight
back.
In an hour he had accepted the
fact that the river would not attack
him. 1t ignored him. Nothing he
did altered its course or its beha-
vior. He drank from it, at last,
and the river did not even mind that.
He followed it upward. 1t was
leading him further into those hills
which got sleeper as they got closer
until they sheered up, leaning over
him. And the river was narrower,
between higher walls. Its voice was
a deep roar now. Occasionally, look
ing ahead, he would see it coming
down over wall of rock-blue on
the slide, a smother of white below.
So it happened that he was stand
ing on a fiat rock, just gathering
himself to leap to another rock in
midstream when the thing was flung
against his legs, so terrifying him
that he made his leap badly, and
was swept into the channel, and
from then on knew nothing but the
struggle to keep his nose above
water and claw himself out.
When he accomplished this he was
some yards downstream. Even while
he was shaking himself, his head
turned to look back. What was
it that had hit him? He must know.
It was still there on the rock on
which he had been standing, and it
didn't move.
With his ears alert and his eyes
fastened on it, Goblin went back and
Investigated.
A foal! Not so unlike himself, ex-
cept that instead of being all white,
1t had brown markings on it. 1t was,
in fact, like Calico, his piebald
Granny.
Goblin was shuddering all over.
The foal had no eyes-they had been
picked out. In half dozen places
there were bloody gashes-
II was at this moment that he
leaped to meet the Tapping black
cloud that dropped down upon him
from the sky. Huge pinions beat
about his head. The creature was
as big as he was himself. Goblin
emitted the first real scream of his
life when, for moment, the terri
Bile face looked closely into his own,
and the great hooked beak drove
for his eyes.
Goblin reared and went over back
ward, the eagle failing him with
wings, beak, and talons. Rolling
on the narrow rocky beach half in
and half out Of water Goblin strug-
gled to get from under the crea-
ture. When he gained his feet, with
the instinct of the fighting stallion,
he darted his head down to bite the
foreleR Of his enemy, He got it