CHAPTER IX

Lucy Bostil could not control the glow of strange excitement under which she labored, but she could put her mind on the riding of Sage King.  She did not realize, however, that she was riding him under the stress and spell of that excitement.

She had headed out to make a short cut, fairly sure of her direction, yet she was not unaware of the fact that she would be lost till she ran across her trail.  That might be easy to miss and time was flying.  She put the King to a brisk trot, winding through the aisles of the sage.

Soon she had left the monument region and was down on the valley floor again.  From time to time she conquered a desire to look back.  Presently she was surprised and very glad to ride into a trail where she saw the tracks she had made coming out.  With much relief she turned Sage King into this trail, and then any anxiety she had felt left her entirely.  But that did not mitigate her excitement.  She eased the King into a long, swinging lope.  And as he warmed to the work she was aroused also.  It was hard to hold him in, once he got out of a trot, and after miles and miles of this, when she thought best to slow down he nearly pulled her arms off.  Still she finally got him in hand.  Then followed miles of soft and rough going, which seemed long and tedious.  Beyond that was the home stretch up the valley, whose gradual slope could be seen only at a distance.  Here was a straight, broad trail, not too soft nor too hard, and for all the years she could remember riders had tried out and trained their favorites on that course.

Lucy reached down to assure herself that the cinch was tight, then she pulled her sombrero down hard, slackened the bridle, and let the King go.  He simply broke his gait, he was so surprised.  Lucy saw him trying to look back at her, as if he could not realize that this young woman rider had given him a free rein.  Perhaps one reason he disliked her had been always and everlastingly that tight rein.  Like the wary horse he was he took to a canter, to try out what his new freedom meant.

“Say, what’s the matter with you?” called Lucy, disdainfully.  “Are you lazy?  Or don’t you believe I can ride you?”

Whereupon she dug him with her spurs.  Sage King snorted.  His action shifted marvelously.  Thunder rolled from under his hoofs.  And he broke out of that clattering roar into his fleet stride, where his hoof-beats were swift, regular, rhythmic.

Lucy rode him with teeth and fists clenched, bending low.  After all, she thought, it was no trick to ride him.  In that gait he was dangerous, for a fall meant death; but he ran so smoothly that riding him was easy and certainly glorious.  He went so fast that the wind blinded her.  The trail was only a white streak in blurred gray.  She could not get her breath; the wind seemed to whip the air away from her.  And then she felt the lessening