“He is not much horse, eh?” purred Cordova.

But the longer she looked the more she saw.  The very leanness of Alcatraz made it easier to trace his running-muscles; she estimated, too, the ample girth at the cinches where size means wind.

“And that’s Alcatraz?” she murmured.

“That is all,” said the pleasant Cordova.

“May I go into the corral and look him over at close range?  I never feel that I know a horse till I get my hands on it.”

She was about to dismount when she saw that the Mexican was hesitating and she settled back in the saddle, flushed with displeasure.

“No,” said Cordova, “that would not be good.  You will see!”

He smiled again and rising, he sauntered to the fence and turned about with his shoulders resting against the upper bar, his back to the stallion.  As he did so, Alcatraz put forward his ears, which, in connection with the dullness of his eyes, gave him a peculiarly foolish look.

“You will see a thing, senorita!” the Mexican was chuckling.

It came without warning.  Alcatraz turned with the speed of a whiplash curling and drove straight at the place where his master leaned.  Marianne’s cry of alarm was not needed.  Cordova had already started, but even so he barely escaped.  The chestnut on braced legs skidded to the fence, his teeth snapping short inches from the back of his master.  His failure maddened Alcatraz.  He reminded Marianne of the antics of a cat when in her play with the mouse she tosses her victim a little too far away and wheels to find her prospective meal disappearing down a hole.  In exactly similar wise the stallion went around the corral in a whirl of dust, rearing, lashing out with hind legs and striking with fore, catching imaginary things in his teeth and shaking them to pieces.  When the fury diminished he began to glide up and down the fence, and there was something so feline in the grace of those long steps and the intentness with which the brute watched Cordova that the girl remembered a new-brought tiger in the zoo.  Also, rage had poured him full of such strength that through the dust cloud she caught again glimpses of that first perfection.

He came at last to a stop, but he faced his owner with a look of steady hate.  The latter returned the gaze with interest, stroking his face and snarling:  “Once more, red devil, eh?  Once more you miss?  Bah!  But I, I shall not miss!”

It was not as one will talk to a dumb beast, for there was no mistaking the vicious earnestness of Cordova, and now the girl made out that he was caressing a long, white scar which ran from his temple across the cheekbone.  Marianne glanced away, embarrassed, as people are when another reveals a dark and hidden portion of his character.

“You see?” said Cordova, “you would not be happy in the corral with him, eh?”