Hervey. Oh, shoot and shoot to kill. He's a murderer--
not a horse!"
That injunction was not needed. The rifle spoke from the shoulder of
Shorty, but the stallion neither fell nor fled, and his challenging
neigh rang faintly down to them.
"Mind the mares!" shrilled Marianne suddenly. "They're starting for
him!!"
In fact, it seemed as though the report of the rifle had started the
Coles horses towards their late companion They went forward at a
high-stepping trot as horses will when their minds are not quite made up
about their course. Now, in obedience to shouted orders from Hervey, the
cowpunchers split into two groups and slipped away on either side to
head the truants; Marianne herself, spurring as hard as she could after
Hervey, heard the foreman groaning: "By God, d'you ever _see_ a hoss
stand up under gunfire like that?"
For as they galloped, the men were pumping in shot after shot wildly,
and Alcatraz did not stir! The firing merely served to rouse the mares
from trot to gallop, and from gallop to run. For the first time Marianne
mourned their speed. They glided away as though the horses of the
cowpunchers were running fetlock deep in mud; they shot up the slope
towards the distant stallion like six bright arrows.
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