Snorting softly, curious and frightened at once, six beautiful animals came towards him.  He was one of their kind, so they came close; the scent of the wilderness was already on him, and they shrank away.  Surely some sinister genius had directed Alcatraz to the one most valuable point of attack on all the ranch, for these were the six brood mares for whose purchase Marianne Jordan had cleaned out her bank account.  The stallion did not know, of course.  He did not even recognize them as his competitors in the race.  All he felt was that there was something charmingly remembered, something half familiar about them.  The boldest came near and he touched noses, whereat she whirled with a little squeal and lashed out at him; but her heels were carefully aimed wide of the mark and Alcatraz merely tossed his nose; plainly she was a flirt.  He pressed a little closer to the fence and urged friendliness with a conversational whinny.  They were not averse, coming towards him with eyes that glimmered in the darkness, retreating often and coming on again, until he had touched noses with them all.  It was extremely pleasant to Alcatraz and hardly less so because the grey mare came and shouldered him rudely.

Then a voice spoke from the barn which opened off the corral:  “What’s all that damned nonsense with the mares yonder?”

Alcatraz crouched for flight.  Another voice answered:  “They’ll mill around every night for a while till they get used to the new place.  That’s the way with them crazy hot-bloods.  No hoss-sense.”

The voices departed.  The shrinking of the stallion had made the mares wince away in turn, but they came back now and resumed the conversation where it had been broken off.  He was careful to introduce himself to each one.  He was greatly tempted to jump the fence and talk to them at closer hand but he knew that it was great folly to risk his neck in a group of mares before he had made out whether or not they were amiable.  If they were cross-tempered he might be kicked to death before he could escape.

The investigations brought entirely favorable returns.  They were very young, these Coles horses, and hence their curiosity was far stronger than their timidity.  Before long every one of the six necks was stretched across the top-rail and when Alcatraz turned his back on them they whinnied uneasily to call him back.

If that were the case, why did they not jump?  He went back and showed them how simple it was if they really wanted to escape and come out with him into the wind and under the free stars of the mountains.  Such a fence was nothing to that powerful jumper.  He walked calmly to it, reared, and sailed over.  That sent the mares scampering wildly, here and there about the corral, and though they came back again after a time, they seemed to have learned nothing.  When he jumped out again not one of them followed.