The stallion might have been fast in quicksand, up to his body, for all the movement he could make.He could move only his head.He held that up, his eyes wild, showing the whites, his foaming mouth wide open, his teeth gleaming.Asound like a scream rent the air.Terrible fear and hate were expressed in that piercing neigh.And shaggy, wet, dusty red, with all of brute savageness in the look and action of his head, he appeared hideous.
As Slone leaped within roping distance the avalanche slipped a foot or two, halted, slipped once more, and slowly started again with that low roar.He did not care whether it slipped or stopped.Like a wolf he leaped closer, whirling his rope.The loop hissed round his head and whistled as he flung it.And when fiercely he jerked back on the rope, the noose closed tight round Wildfire's neck.
"By G--d--I--got--a rope-on him!" cried Slone, in hoarse pants.
He stared, unbelieving.It was unreal, that sight--unreal like the slow, grinding movement of the avalanche under him.Wildfire's head seemed a demon head of hate.It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend.That horrible scream could not be the scream of a horse.
Slone was a wild-horse hunter, a rider, and when that second of incredulity flashed by, then came the moment of triumph.No moment could ever equal that one, when he realized he stood there with a rope around that grand stallion's neck.All the days and the miles and the toil and the endurance and the hopelessness and the hunger were paid for in that moment.His heart seemed too large for his breast.
"I tracked--you!" he cried, savagely."I stayed--with you!...An' I got a rope--on you! An'--I'll ride you--you red devil!"The passion of the man was intense.That endless, racking pursuit had brought out all the hardness the desert had engendered in him.Almost hate, instead of love, spoke in Slone's words.He hauled on the lasso, pulling the stallion's head down and down.The action was the lust of capture as well as the rider's instinctive motive to make the horse fear him.Life was unquenchably wild and strong in that stallion; it showed in the terror which made him hideous.And man and beast somehow resembled each other in that moment which was inimical to noble life.
The avalanche slipped with little jerks, as if treacherously loosing its hold for a long plunge.The line of fire below ate at the bleached grass and the long column of smoke curled away on the wind.
Slone held the taut lasso with his left hand, and with the right he swung the other rope, catching the noose round Wildfire's nose.Then letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of the stallion far down.
Hand over hand Slone closed in on the horse.He leaped on Wildfire's head, pressed it down, and, holding it down on the sand with his knees, with swift fingers he tied the noose in a hackamore--an improvised halter.Then, just as swiftly, he bound his scarf tight round Wildfire's head, blindfolding him.
"All so easy!" exclaimed Slone, under his breath."Lord! who would believe it!
...Is it a dream?"
He rose and let the stallion have a free head.
"Wildfire, I got a rope on you--an' a hackamore--an' a blinder," said Slone.
"An' if I had a bridle I'd put that on you....Who'd ever believe you'd catch yourself, draggin' in the sand?"Slone, finding himself failing on the sand, grew alive to the augmented movement of the avalanche.It had begun to slide, to heave and bulge and crack.Dust rose in clouds from all around.The sand appeared to open and let him sink to his knees.The rattle of gravel was drowned in a soft roar.Then he shot down swiftly, holding the lassoes, keeping himself erect, and riding as if in a boat.He felt the successive steps of the slope, and then the long incline below, and then the checking and rising and spreading of the avalanche as it slowed down on the level.All movement then was checked violently.He appeared to be half buried in sand.While he struggled to extricate himself the thick dust blew away and settled so that he could see.Wildfire lay before him, at the edge of the slide, and now he was not so deeply embedded as he had been up on the slope.He was struggling and probably soon would have been able to get out.The line of fire was close now, but Slone did not fear that.
