Decidedly here was a foeman worthy of his steel, thought Alcatraz. He
looked about him. There stood the mares and the horses ranged in a loose
semi-circle, waiting and watching; only the colts, ignorant of what was
to come, had begun to frolic together or bother their mothers with a
savage pretense of battle. Alcatraz saw one solid old bay topple her
offspring with a side-swing of her head. She wanted an unobstructed view
of the fight.
His interest in this by-play nearly proved his undoing for while his
head was turned he heard a rushing of hoofs and barely had time to throw
himself to one side as the black flashed by him. Alcatraz turned and
reared to beat the insolent stranger into the earth but he found that
the leader was truly different from the sluggish horses of men. A
hundred wild battles had taught the black every trick of tooth and heel;
and in the thick of the fight he carried his weight with the agility of
a cat: Alcatraz had not yet swung himself fairly back on his haunches
when the black was upon him, the dust flying up behind from the
quickness of his turn. Straight at the throat of the chestnut he dived
and his teeth closed on the throat of Alcatraz just where the neck
narrows beneath the jaw.
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