Just where the true mountains broke out into a pleasant
medley of foothills, the stallion stopped to rest. He nibbled a few
mouthfuls of grass growing lush and rank on the edge of a watercourse,
waded to the knees in a still pool and blotted out the star-images with
the disturbance of his drinking, and then went back onto a hilltop to
sleep.
It was full day before he rose and started on again, and to keep his
strength for the next stage of the journey, he ate busily first on the
lee side of a hill where the grass was thickest and tenderest. Between
mouthfuls he raised his head to gaze down on his new-found land. It was
a day of clouds, thin sheetings and dense cumulus masses sweeping on the
west wind and breaking against the mountains. Alcatraz could not see the
crests over which he had climbed the night before, so thick were those
breaking ranks of clouds, but the plateau beneath him was dotted with
yellow sunshine and in the day it filled to the full the promise of the
moonlit night. He saw wide stretches of meadow; he saw hills sharpsided
and smoothly rolling--places to climb with labor and places to gallop at
ease. He saw streams that promised drink at will; he saw clumps and
groves of trees for shelter from sun or storm.
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