“Have you ever heard of the secret pasture?” she asked, her eyes still fixed on the remote green.

A snort of fear brought her eyes back to the man beside her.  Dolly, upreared, with distended nostrils and wild eyes, was pawing the air madly with her fore legs.  Chris threw himself forward against her neck to keep her from falling backward, and at the same time touched her with the spurs to compel her to drop her fore feet to the ground in order to obey the go-ahead impulse of the spurs.

“Why, Dolly, this is most remarkable,” Lute began reprovingly.

But, to her surprise, the mare threw her head down, arched her back as she went up in the air, and, returning, struck the ground stiff-legged and bunched.

“A genuine buck!” Chris called out, and the next moment the mare was rising under him in a second buck.

Lute looked on, astounded at the unprecedented conduct of her mare, and admiring her lover’s horsemanship.  He was quite cool, and was himself evidently enjoying the performance.  Again and again, half a dozen times, Dolly arched herself into the air and struck, stiffly bunched.  Then she threw her head straight up and rose on her hind legs, pivoting about and striking with her fore feet.  Lute whirled into safety the horse she was riding, and as she did so caught a glimpse of Dolly’s eyes, with the look in them of blind brute madness, bulging until it seemed they must burst from her head.  The faint pink in the white of the eyes was gone, replaced by a white that was like dull marble and that yet flashed as from some inner fire.

A faint cry of fear, suppressed in the instant of utterance, slipped past Lute’s lips.  One hind leg of the mare seemed to collapse, and for a moment the whole quivering body, upreared and perpendicular, swayed back and forth, and there was uncertainty as to whether it would fall forward or backward.  The man, half-slipping sidewise from the saddle, so as to fall clear if the mare toppled backward, threw his weight to the front and alongside her neck.  This overcame the dangerous teetering balance, and the mare struck the ground on her feet again.

But there was no let-up.  Dolly straightened out so that the line of the face was almost a continuation of the line of the stretched neck; this position enabled her to master the bit, which she did by bolting straight ahead down the road.

For the first time Lute became really frightened.  She spurred Washoe Ban in pursuit, but he could not hold his own with the mad mare, and dropped gradually behind.  Lute saw Dolly check and rear in the air again, and caught up just as the mare made a second bolt.  As Dolly dashed around a bend, she stopped suddenly, stiff-legged.  Lute saw her lover torn out of the saddle, his thigh-grip broken by the sudden jerk.  Though he had lost his seat, he had not been thrown, and as the mare dashed on Lute saw him clinging to the side of the horse, a hand in the mane and a leg across the saddle.  With a quick cavort he regained his seat and proceeded to fight with the mare for control.