The three men clearly were hard pressed. Their faces were coated thick with dust; their eyes were red-rimmed, bulging, and bloodshot; their movements were heavy with fatigue. Scarcely a sound escaped their lips as they watched for every fresh manoeuver of their prisoner, and fought doggedly to gain a yard or two along the road. In the silence and intensity of the struggle there was something savage, elemental, and incomparable, heightened by the extraordinary beauty of the animal and the uncouth appearance of the men. Between them, the captive and his captors, Marion's sympathy was about equally divided. At every gallant sally made by the horse her heart leaped, and she hoped instinctively that he would go free. But then, the next instant, she was thrilled by the bold and shrewd counter-play of the cow-punchers that blocked the horse's strategy.

Marion had scarcely comprehended all this, and imperfectly, when a terrifying thing occurred. The golden horse seemed to have paused and gathered all his forces for an effort that should make his best previous performance look like the silly antics of a colt. Suddenly, and without any warning manoeuver, he charged the full length of his rope straight at the man who held it coiled in his hand, with the end looped around the horn of his saddle. At the final bound, he reared as if to fall upon the cowboy and mangle him with his forefeet. But instead of finishing this attack, he whirled on his hind legs with incredible swiftness; and before the man could gather up the slack of the rope, or brace himself for the shock, the wild horse dashed across the road with all the strength and fury there was in him.

Marion screamed, and closed her eyes. There were dreadful sounds of falling bodies, of bodies dragged on the ground, with grunts and groans and smothered cries. Then silence. When she dared to look she could see at first only a welter of men and horses half-hidden by the dust. Near her lay the gold horse with his head twisted backward by the taut rope, which choked him until his eyes bulged, and foam dripped from his lips. The man who had held the lariat lay half under his fallen pony, whose efforts to rise were checked by the tightened rope still tied to the saddlebow. The two other men were on their feet, one clutching the straightened halter, the second deftly slipping a lariat around the prisoner's pawing hind legs.

It was all over in a minute. The taut rope was cut near the saddle of the fallen pony, which then scrambled to its feet; the leader rose, shook himself, and proceeded phlegmatically to adjust the turned saddle, and to climb stiffly into it; the leading-rope was pa.s.sed to him again, the second lariat was loosed from the outlaw's feet, permitting him to rise; the other men remounted; and the procession moved on again in silence, scarcely a word having been spoken from the time the horse made his mad charge for liberty. And now he seemed to have had enough of the conflict, for he stepped forward obediently and, Marion fancied, as demurely as a child that has finished a naughty tantrum.

Then at last there was speech. One of the men had dropped back a few paces to be in the rear of the prisoner. He sat heavily in the saddle, leaning forward as if he would fall on the pony's neck. But his eyes never left the golden horse, and when he spoke it was not to the girl, who had ridden close up to his side, but to himself, in a kind of hoa.r.s.e and guttural soliloquy.

"But he ain't done. He's foolin'," the man said again and again, as if he had started the words and could not stop them. "He ain't done. He's foolin'."

Marion looked at him curiously. He was the typical cow-puncher, in blue flannel shirt and leather chaps, with the inevitable revolver hanging loosely at his hip, and a long quirt suspended from his right wrist. The dust on his face was stained with blood that had flowed from a raw bruise on his temple, and Marion now noticed that his left arm hung limp at his side.

"You're hurt!" she said softly.

The man turned, and stared at her blankly, and she saw that his face was distorted into a set expression of pain.

"Arm busted," he said, after a moment, as if surprised by her question; and then renewed his watch.

"How did it happen?" she asked.

"Throwed me."

"You don't mean you tried to ride him!"

"Jerked me. Th' man ain't born't c'n ride 'im."

"You were leading him?"

"No, just thought I was," he said grimly. "He drug me."

"When was that?"

"This morning--about seven miles back."

"Where did he come from?"

"San Luis."

"Where is that, please?"

"Over yander," he answered, nodding toward the western mountains.

Marion stared.

"You haven't brought him over the mountains!"

"'Round by Pinto Pa.s.s, an' up through the canyon."

"I've never seen a horse like that before," she said, after a brief silence.

"Nor anybody else has," he replied, with a note of pride.

"But he's no cow pony--surely."

"You ain't never heard o' Sunnysides?"

"No."

He looked at her curiously.

"Of course not," he said apologetically. "You're f'm the city. East, maybe?"

"Yes, I'm from New York."

"Then it's natch'ral. Everybody in these parts has heard o'

Sunnysides, though it's not many that's seen him."

"Please tell me about him."

The man's eyes brightened a little.

"He's got some strange blood in him," he began. "n.o.body knows what it is, but th' ain't another one o' that color, nor his devil spirit, in the whole bunch. The rest of 'em's just ordinary wild horses runnin'

up an' down the sandhills of the San Luis. There's people't say he's a ghost horse. Fact! An' they say't he'll never stay caught. I don't know. It's certain't he's been caught three times,--not countin' the times cow-punchers an' others has thought they'd caught him, but hadn't. The first time he was caught actual he broke out o' the strongest corral in the San Luis--at night--an' n.o.body sees hide nor hair of 'im--not so much as a flicker o' yellow in the moonlight. An'

back he was, headin' the herd again.

"Nex' time Thad Brinker ropes him. Thad's the topnotch cow-puncher between the Black Hills an' the Rio Grande, an' he comes all the way f'm Dakoty when he hears the yarn about Sunnysides. Thad gits fourteen men to help him round up the bunch, an' then he ropes the gold feller after a fight that's talked about yit in the San Luis. He ropes him. An' then what does Brinker do?"

He looked at Marion as if he dared her to make as many guesses as she wished. She shook her head.

"You ain't the only one that'd never hit it," he went on with satisfaction. "Thad ropes him, an' while they lay there restin', Sunnysides all tied up so he can't move, an' Brinker rubbin' some b.u.mps he'd come by in the fracas, just then the red comes up onto Sangre de Cristo. Brinker sees it--Ever seen the sunset color on Sangre de Cristo? No? That's a pity, Miss. Indeed, that's a pity. But you're f'm Noo York, you said."

He paused again, and Marion began to realize the full degree of her provinciality and ignorance. She was from New York. What a pity!

"Well," said the cowboy, as if resolved to do the best he could in the circ.u.mstances, "sometimes--maybe three or four times a year--it's weird. It's religious. The white peaks turn red as blood--that's why they're called Sangre de Cristo. It's Spanish for Blood of Christ. It makes you feel queer-like"--He paused a moment thoughtfully, watching the golden horse as it stepped quietly, lightly, with head high, just ahead of them. "The red comes onto Sangre de Cristo, an' Brinker sees it. He looks at the blood on the peaks, an' then at the gold horse lyin' there all torn an' dirty, an' this is what Brinker does, an'

maybe he couldn't help it. He ups an' cuts the ropes, an' Sunnysides's off to his waitin' bunch, an' they all go snortin' down the valley."

There was a touch of awe in the man's voice, and Marion felt a little of it too. She looked toward the serrated barrier of mountains, in the very middle of which stood old Thunder under his pall of cloud. Beyond lay San Luis--Sangre de Cristo--and what romance! Would she ever--Her eyes rested for a moment on the black pile that now, as always, fascinated and yet disturbed her.

"And you?" she said at length, turning to the cowboy.

"There wasn't no red sunset this time," the man answered, with a grim smile. "But we ain't slep' since," he added, with a return of weariness.

"You caught him?" she asked admiringly.

"Us three."

"But what are you doing with him here?"