Another danger appeared. Off to the side and
well ahead, spurring his mount to top effort, came
Red Perris, who must have marked the chase with his
glass. Alcatraz gave him not a glance, not a thought.
What was the whisper and burn of a rope, what was
even the hum of a bullet compared with the tearing
teeth of the lofer wolf? So he kept to his course,
stretched straight from the tip of his nose to the
end of his flying tail and marking from the corner
of his eye that the lobo still gained vital inches
at every leap.
The horseman to his left shot over a hill and disappeared
into the hollow beyond—he would be a scant
hundred yards away when Alcatraz raced by, if indeed
he could keep beyond reach of the wolf as long as
this. And that was more than doubtful—impossible!
For the grey streak had shot from behind until it
now was at his tail, at his flank, with red tongue
lolling and the sound of its panting audible.
Half a minute more and it would be in front and heading
him, and when he whirled the creature would spring.
And so it happened. The killer swept to the front
and snapped—at the flash of the teeth Alcatraz
wheeled, saw the monster leave the ground—and
then a limp weight struck his shoulder and rolled heavily
back to the ground; but not until he had straightened
away on his new course did Alcatraz hear the report
of the rifle, so much had the bullet outdistanced
the sound.
He looked back.
Red Perris sat in his saddle with the rifle coming
slowly down from his shoulder. The lofer wolf
lay with a smear of red across one side of his head.
Then a hill rose behind the stallion and shut off his
view.
He brought down his gait to a stumbling canter for
now a great weakness was pouring through his legs
and his heart fluttered and trembled like the heart
of a yearling when it first feels the strain and burn
of the rope. He was saved, but by how small a
margin! He was saved, but in his mind grew another
problem. Why had the Great Enemy chosen to kill
the wolf and spare the horse? And how great was
his greatness who could strike down from afar that
king of flesh-eaters in the very moment of a kill!
But he knew, very clearly, that he had been in the
hollow of the man’s hand and had been spared;
and that he had been rescued from certain death; was
not the scent of the wolf’s pelt still in his
nostrils as the creature had leaped?
He came to the brook and snorted in wonder. In
a sane moment he would never have attempted that leap.
For that matter, perhaps, no other horse between the
seas would have ever dreamed of the effort. Alcatraz
headed up the stream for a narrow place, shaking his
head at the roar of the current.
