Then Patches understood.  “Wild horses!” he ejaculated softly.

There are few men, I think, who can look without admiration upon a beautifully formed, noble spirited horse.  The glorious pride and strength and courage of these most kingly of God’s creatures—­even when they are in harness and subject to their often inferior masters—­compel respect and a degree of appreciation.  But seen as they roam free in those pastures that, since the creation, have never been marred by plow or fence—­pastures that are theirs by divine right, and the sunny slopes and shady groves and rocky nooks of which constitute their kingdom—­where, in their lordly strength, they are subject only to the dictates of their own being, and, unmutilated by human cruelty, rule by the power and authority of Nature’s laws—­they stir the blood of the coldest heart to a quicker flow, and thrill the mind of the dullest with admiring awe.

“There’s twenty-eight in that bunch,” whispered Phil.  “Do you see that big black stallion on guard—­the one that throws up his head every minute or two for a look around?”

Patches nodded.  There was no mistaking the watchful leader of the band.

“He’s the chap that gave me my title, as you call it,” chuckled Phil.  “Come on, now, and we’ll see them in action; then I’ll tell you about it.”

He slipped from the rock and led the way back to the saddle horses.

Riding along the ridge, just under the crest, they soon reached the point where the chain of low peaks merges into the hills that form the southern boundary of the basin, and so came suddenly into full view of the wild horses that were feeding on the slopes a little below.

As the two horsemen appeared, the leader of the band threw up his head with a warning call to his fellows.

Phil reined in his horse and motioned for Patches to do the same.

For several minutes, the black stallion held his place, as motionless as the very rocks of the mountain side, gazing straight at the mounted men as though challenging their right to cross the boundary of his kingdom, while his retainers stood as still, waiting his leadership.  With his long, black mane and tail rippling and waving in the breeze that swept down from Blair Pass and across the Basin, with his raven-black coat glistening in the sunlight with the sheen of richest satin where the swelling muscles curved and rounded from shadow to high light, and with his poise of perfect strength and freedom, he looked, as indeed he was, a prince of his kind—­a lord of the untamed life that homes in those God-cultivated fields.

Patches glanced at his companion, as if to speak, but struck by the expression on the cowboy’s face, remained silent.  Phil was leaning a little forward in his saddle, his body as perfect in its poise of alert and graceful strength as the body of the wild horse at which he was gazing with such fixed interest.  The clear, deeply tanned skin of his cheeks glowed warmly with the red of his clean, rich blood, his eyes shone with suppressed excitement, his lips, slightly parted, curved in a smile of appreciation, love and reverence for the unspoiled beauty of the wild creature that he himself, in so many ways, unconsciously resembled.