The mother had come anxiously close during
this adventure but now she regarded Alcatraz with a friendly glance and
went about her serious business of eating for two.
The grey mare was drifting near, likewise, as though by inadvertence,
nibbling the headed grasstops as she came; but Alcatraz shrewdly
guessed that her approach was not altogether unplanned. He was not
displeased. His quiet happiness grew as the cloud--shadows rushed across
him and the sun warmed him. It was a pleasant world--a pleasant,
pleasant world! His people wandered in the hollow. They looked to him
for warning of danger. They looked at him for guidance in a crisis and
he accepted the burden cheerfully.
Fear, it seemed, had made him one with them. All his life he had dreaded
only one thing--man; but these creatures of the wild had many a fear of
the lobo, the mountain-lion, the drought, the high flying buzzard who
would claim them, dying, and added above all this, man. Not that
Alcatraz knew these things definitely. He could only feel that these,
his people, were strong only in their speed and in their timidity, and
he felt power to rule and protect them. For he who had fought man, and
won, had surely nothing to dread from beasts.
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