CHAPTER XI

THE WILD HORSE

Suddenly one day they were in the midst of spring. It was impossible to believe that there had been such a blizzard only six weeks before. The sun shone with a desperate heat for early April, the arroyos dried up, the open range was calling.

Now the time had come, Raquel decided, to make that trip over into the reaches of the upper Pecos where a bunch of wild horses had been running free for several years. These horses had straggled down from Montana and Wyoming, it was said, through Colorado and New Mexico, and had multiplied on the unfenced stretches of Texas range.

Ole Hossfoot had reported that a band of fine horse stock, partly mustang, was going to waste over there. The wild horses used up range that was needed for beef stock, and the hand of the cattleman was set against them.

It was almost impossible to capture them, and if a stockman did take the trouble what could he do with them? They brought less than a cow at the stockyards, and you couldn’t sell an “unbroke” mustang for anything. And so many of these fine, free animals ended with a bullet between the eyes.

Yet there they were, ready to be gentled into prize ponies for any one who would take the trouble. It would be an undertaking thoroughly to Raquel’s liking, to capture a few of the swift, untamed creatures.

“I’m going over there and get me a horse, Mom. We’ll need more horses for the roundup, and there’s as good stock built up by wild living as any bred cowhorse I know today.”

Mrs. Daniels sighed.

“Does seem like you’re never satisfied unless you get a new piece of wild, buckin’ horseflesh under you, Raquel.” It was as near a reproof as she had ever come.

But she said no more when she saw them getting ready.

“If I remember the lay of that country over there,” Raquel told Russell, “there are at least two canyons where you could close the end and corral a few animals anyway. If it takes over a week we’ll not linger. But I have my heart set on getting a horse from off the plains with a little raw mustang in him, a little Arab stallion and some native blood,--a real wild horse.”

Jami, Georgie, and Angel, who was a good roper, were to go. Jami and Angel rode, but Raquel and Georgie took the car as far as the Shandy ranch, sixty miles from the Lazy L. There they left it under a shed while they rode out to look over the country on horses borrowed from their ranch neighbors.

Old Shandy, a man not more than forty who looked sixty, rode with them, leading the way towards the distant pastures where the wild herd ran. They stood upon the crest of a slope, looking away over rolling distances bound to the north and the east by low-lying foothills.

The range was magnificent with young gramma grass, and thick patches of bunch grass. Behind a clump of Spanish dagger where the soil was still soft from the recently melted snow was the print of a horse’s unshod hoof.

Further along they came across a hoof print larger for a wild horse than any they had ever seen. Both Raquel and Georgie were delighted. But it was growing dark, too late for any more land looking that day, so they turned back to Shandy’s, where they were to put up.

Shandy and his old woman--really old, alas, at thirty-eight, and childless--were so excited with the unusual experience of having company that they talked, no doubt, more than they had in six months.

Raquel had brought provisions in the car and over Mrs. Shandy’s protests insisted on bringing them in. They were not going to eat the Shandys out of house and home without warning that way.

She helped Mrs. Shandy fry the bacon and peel potatoes, while they set beans to soaking for the next day. There was a sack of cornmeal, one of dried peaches, and a case of condensed milk, for the Shandys, like most ranch folk, kept no milk cattle.

They ate hearty dinners at five, and by eight were all stowed away, too sleepy to talk, in their hard beds, anchored under the equally hard “comforters” provided by Mrs. Shandy, and the Navajo rugs which Raquel had packed in the car.

Raquel and Georgie slept beside each other in a tiny room off the kitchen, which was living-room, bedroom, and dining-room. In adjoining rooms were Jami and Angel, who had arrived just in time for supper. The doors were all left open to get the heat from the kitchen and soon a variety of snores could be heard.

Raquel giggled and stuffed the cast-iron quilt into her upturned and defenseless ear. She fell asleep to a smothered din of snores from within the house, and the yap-yapping of coyotes and the long howl of a lobo outside on the mesa.

The day broke with glorious weather. In a sky of turquoise blue great cumulus clouds piled. A soft wind blew off the rolling prairie, where already tall grasses swayed to the base of tawny foothills. Upon a hummock a scouting party sat motionless in their saddles, looking down towards the northwest.

“That’s no horse, Jami. It’s a charred tula, and right next it is a white-faced heifer.” Raquel was positive.

“’Scuse me, ma’am, but that’s a dark palmetty and a bunch o’ daisies.” Jami grinned with superior wisdom and handed Raquel his field glass.

Even the expert range rider can be deceived at a distance of three miles. Not a sign of wild horses had been seen, and after two days of beautiful, clear weather the horse hunters were none the richer.

But luck was coming on the heels of the wind. Across the mesa top came Angel and Georgie at a dead run, and in a few minutes pulled up beside Raquel and Jami.

“Sighted,” burst out Georgie. “Foller me.” He wheeled and was off, pursued by racing centaurs.

Up they came behind a grassy hill and hardly had their heads topped the summit when a thunder of hoofs arose, a wind as of a cattle stampede, and almost over their toes a bunch of horses went hightailing, burning the wind with their arrogance and joy.

The leader was a great roan stallion, the herd mainly young horses, a bunch of mares, and half a dozen two-year-old colts. Beside these there ran free as though riding herd upon its companions a milk and sorrel pinto that flashed before Raquel like a painted tiger-lily.

The sight of it left her breathless. Not until the whirlwind had faded away in the distance did they stir or speak.

“There’s my horse. Oh, I want _him_.” Raquel scarcely spoke above a whisper.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to slip a rope over his head for you, Raquel,” promised Jami with a fine air of assurance. “I aim to get me that slick brown mustang. I always wanted one, and I might as well take my broncho bustin’ now, ’cause after I hit thirty I’ll be put out o’ the runnin’ anyways.”

Raquel turned on the boys earnestly. “Boys, we’ve got two good ropers here, Jami and Angel, and we ought to get us a few new ponies from this bunch. But--I don’t need to tell you--let’s have no hard throwin’, please. Don’t break down any horse. Let’s have ’em sound of wind and limb or not at all.

“If they’re any killers amongst ’em leave ’em alone. We aren’t training for the state rodeo; and we’ve got plenty of broncs at home that you can scratch to your heart’s content right in the home corral. Remember Snakey and Diablo. And the roundup will furnish enough fightin’ steers to satisfy even Jami. And say, Angel, let’s see that rope of yours do its stuff.”

Then began the real work. Deploying off in twos, they gained by different routes the mouth of the north canyon where foothills enclosed an amphitheater of waving range. At the end was a natural corral, a rock bound prison, and across the narrowest part of this the boys built a pole stockade, with a narrow opening. Leading up to this gate was a runway, along the top and bottom of which they strung barbed wire.

Just outside the stockade they put up a saddling pen. It took the entire day to finish, and while the boys were working, with Mr. Shandy’s help, Raquel and Georgie rode herd back and forth about two miles from the mouth of the canyon to keep off any approach of the wild horses at this point.

From a high rock Raquel saw down in a coulee a bunch of mares herded together, and two tiny colts, not more than two or three days old, basking in the hot sun. They wobbled and frisked on their uncertain legs, perfect little mustangs. They seemed to grow stronger every minute as they soaked up the sunshine.

As the sun began at length to sink, the lord of the herd came thundering up to pick up his mare and they all went off together towards the foothills, but fortunately not towards the box canyon which Raquel had picked out to corral them in.

It seemed to Raquel that she could not wait for morning, and that she tossed and turned for hours that night, dreaming of the painted mustang, before sleep came. As a matter of fact she slept almost at once and the dreams all took place in the few restless moments while sounds from adjoining rooms were waking her up.

Once again they were out on the plains, searching for a glimpse of the wild horse and his herd. It was noon before Raquel got so much as a sign of their dust, ’way over towards the east. But they were not able to get within a mile of the herd that way. Whenever one of them came up around a slope or rock, the band was already scattered or had shifted to some spot out of sight. Yet they kept always to windward of those keen nostrils.

They agreed that they could put in two more days waiting. But luck was with them in the morning. Warm and still, without any wind to carry scent or sound to quivering noses and pointing ears, the very air favored their purpose.

There they were, the spirited creatures, feeding in that hollow. And at a signal five cowponies flashed over the rim and drew a flying cordon about the startled and almost instantly speeding band.

The colts ran with frantic and manful leaps alongside their mothers but the pace was too great and both were left behind in a few moments. The mares whinnied despairingly, broke gait, faltering, to be nipped back into line by sharp teeth on flank and shoulder. One, however, wheeled about and tore back after her baby, and the race passed on.

With the whole prairie to circle in, it was almost too good to be true that the dark stallion should make for the box canyon.

“But the wise old boy may know a trail out,” Raquel speculated as she pressed her pony closer upon the western flank. Jami had ridden so close that he was swinging his rope over a three-year-old. There, it circled the mustang’s outthrust chest.

The stocky, well-trained cowhorse that Jami rode was bracing himself for a full stop as if he were going to throw a steer. But Jami spurred him on and pulled back slowly and surely till the astonished three-year-old was compelled to drop behind while his wild fellows disappeared ahead.

Raquel, who was gaining on the race, scarcely took her eyes from the milky, red-spotted flank of the pinto. As she drew in nearer the running horses she could see him plainly. The beautiful throat was swelling, the wild head up, the long, plumy tail raised in defiant flight and streaming on the wind of his speed.

“You beauty,” she sang to herself. “Oh, if I can get you I’ll make you love me!”

They were at the canyon’s mouth. There was no drawing back now. The chief stallion tore straight ahead. Jami was trying to cut out the stragglers, a two-year-old filly, an old mare, a year-old colt that they would not want; and finally he succeeded in riding between them and the main group, driving them off down the canyon again.

It was almost too simple. The wild horse, unlearned in the ways of man, made for his close refuge, and, pressed towards the long runway, saw no other way of escape. He swerved into the trap.

Not until the sides of the chute touched his flank did the fleeing leader show terror. He stopped amidst flying clods of earth, trembling violently. His magnificent speed had failed him; he would fight. Rearing on his hind feet he pawed at the barrier of saplings; he used his hoofs like hands, wrenching and pulling with terrible strength and dexterity at the poles that would not break.

Then suddenly he leaped almost straight up into the air and clear of them--only to feel a hot stinging circlet (Angel’s reata) close about his throat.

The pinto meanwhile had raced straight ahead, followed by three of the band. The gate had been quickly closed and the wild horses raced madly round the corral.

Outside there were a few moments of terrible danger as the enraged stallion rose in the air to fight this thing around his neck, and this creature pulling at him. As the black horse rose over him with murderous hoofs flaying the air, Angel abandoned his reata and, pulling his pony up almost over backward, beat a swift retreat and saved both pony and himself by a hair’s breadth, while Georgie with unexpected presence of mind laid a stinging lash along the wild horse’s flank. The big stallion turned and thundered his way back down the canyon.

It was all over in a moment. Raquel meanwhile rode along the corral rail, panting with the race and the excitement. The pinto would not be roped. Again and again her cleverly flung reata hovered, to be fought aside, bit at, and writhed from.

Neither Angel nor Jami, who came up shortly with his prize, could capture the milk and sorrel horse. But Angel roped and threw a pretty little mare that had been caught in the runway and within an hour had her saddled and bridled. He rode her at once up and down the canyon.

“I’ll tell you boys, just leave me here. Leave me alone with the pinto. I can handle him, alone, and bring him back. Just let me try it,” Raquel pleaded.

And so, unwillingly enough, the boys returned to the Shandy ranch, and Raquel stayed behind with the pinto. For an hour after the sound of the departing party had died away Raquel sat quietly beside the corral fence. Then she began to move along the side, speaking gently to the pony she rode so that the watchful creature quivering over against the rock wall would grow accustomed to the sound of her voice.

She came and went while the wild mustang watched her from the far end of the trap corral. She threw grass over the fencing, and waited. She spoke to the pinto, and waited. And finally she rode her pony through the runway and into the corral.

The little wild horse stood perfectly still. He was curious. But he would not let them come near him and, as the strange creature drew closer, he whirled about only to find that suddenly a whirring thing settled over his head. Though he fought desperately and shied and wheeled to the other side of the enclosure, and rose up in many straight-legged, round-backed buckings, it remained there.

When his fear and his fury were spent a bit he heard the voice of the creature again. There was something in it that arrested him. His trembling stopped. But as he felt the rope pulling on his neck he fought again furiously, and rose up to tear it from him with his forefeet.

There was danger in his eye. But the rope pulled him sharply down; a swift twirl round a snubbing post and he found that in spite of running, charging, plunging, biting, he was still held by the thing round his neck.

It took an hour to learn this. The soft-voiced creature spoke gently to him from time to time whenever he stood still. She had dismounted and stood not far away. There was danger in that contest between the girl and the horse. But if there had not been something of a conquest the pinto would not have meant so much to Raquel.

Finally, although he trembled, he stood still when she came near. She laid a hand on the rope and drew it taut, while the other crept up towards his velvet muzzle.

Over and over the girl’s fingers crept up the rope, and the sun was sinking when at last her soft palm came to rest over his spotted nose. The wild nostrils widened, a great exhalation of fear was released, but Raquel’s reassuring touch, gentle as a breeze, remained. Her hand crept to his neck, patted the sturdy shoulder.

Dusk was falling when Raquel rode the wild horse up to the very door of the Shandy adobe. His flanks were wet, yet Raquel wore no spur and guided her mount with a rope bridle. “I did not even need the bit,” she said at once. “Custer’s pony is back there tied in the canyon corral. Will you ride over and bring him back for me, Jami?”

She turned the pinto into a walled corral, staking him with a twelve foot rope. She caressed his nose as she said good night. He drew back, but submitted with a curious widening of the eyes. He had had a rope about his head, had carried a weight on his back, but now he did not want to fight this creature who had conquered him. Something of that trust which the horse can feel for man had entered his free, wild heart.

It was three days later that Raquel rode into the home corral on her milk and sorrel steed. They had spent one night on the open meadow, one at La Raquelita, making about twenty miles a day. With a thrill of exultation Raquel slipped from the pinto’s back.

“You’ll have your own corral, _querido_, never fear.” She spoke softly into his creamy ear while she deftly loosed the cinches, unsaddled, and set saddle and blanket on the ground behind the newly gentled animal. The neck rope was thrown to the ground so the pinto should learn that where it rested he remained. Raquel moved towards the gate. The horse’s intelligent eyes followed this new being who so compelled his obedience and his devotion. He ran a few steps after her, but the gate brushed his breast, and he drew back with a look of the frenzy he was to forget. Then the quiet voice which already affected him so, and which he was to learn so to love, stopped the quick beating of his heart.

“_Adios, compadre._ We’ll have many a fine time together, little Paintbrush. That is your name.”

Mom was at the kitchen door, her eyes crinkled with pleasure.

“So you got you a little pinto, honey? Always did want one more’n any color horseflesh, didn’t you?”

And there was much talk round the table of the beauties and powers of this remarkable mustang, and his gaits.

“Why, he’ll trot like a lobo, and stretch out like a deer, and he can bound with the antelope. I tell you folks the Paintbrush has copied every runnin’ creature, and he’ll do it all for me when I have won him entirely.”