The
grey mare came beside him and begged him back with a call softer than a
whisper, but he merely raised his head the higher and stared at the huge
outlines of the sheds and barns. To Alcatraz every one of them was a
fortress filled with danger that might leap up at him. Yet he must not
turn back after having come all this distance, surely. He went on. The
road opened into an unfenced semicircle with corrals on every side and
from one of these enclosures a horse neighed, and there was a brief
sound of many trampling feet. Some of his own kind were playing there;
Alcatraz forgot his hatred a little, forgot man. He went straight to the
corral and put his head over the top bar.
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.
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