As though there was a poundage of joy and additional muscle in
self-mastery, the frame of the chestnut filled, his neck arched, and
there came into his eyes that gleam which no man can describe and which
for lack of words he calls the light of the wild.
Fear, to be sure, was still with him; would ever be with him, for the
thought of man followed like galloping horses surrounding him, but what
a small shadow was that in the sunshine of this new existence! His life
had been the bitterness of captivity since Cordova took in part payment
of a drunken gambling debt a sickly foal out of an old thoroughbred
mare. The sire was unknown, and Cordova, disgusted at having to accept
this wretched horseflesh in place of money, had beaten the six months'
old colt soundly and turned it loose in the pasture. There followed a
brief season of happiness in the open pasture but when the new grass
came, short and thick and sweet and crisp under tooth, Cordova came by
the pasture and saw his yearling flirting away from the fastest of the
older horses with a stretch gallop that amazed the Mexican. He leaned a
moment on the fence watching with glittering eyes and then he passed
into a dream. At the end of the dream he took Alcatraz out of the
pasture and into the stable. That had been to Alcatraz, like the first
calamity falling on Job, the beginning of sorrow and for three years and
more he had endured not in patience but with an abiding hatred. For a
great hatred is a great strength, and the hatred for Cordova made the
chestnut big of heart to wait. He had learned to season his days with
the patience of the lynx waiting for the porcupine to uncurl or the
patience of the cat amazingly still for hours by the rat-hole. In such a
manner Alcatraz endured. Once a month, or once a year, he found an
opening to let drive at the master with his heels, or to rear and
strike, or to snap with his teeth wolfishly. If he missed it meant a
beating; if he landed it meant a beating postponed; and so the dream had
grown to have the man one day beneath his feet. Now, on the hilltop,
every nerve in his forelegs quivered in memory of the feel of live flesh
beneath his stamping hoofs.
It is said that sometimes one victory in the driving finish of a close
race will give a horse a great heart for running and one defeat,
similarly, may break him. But Alcatraz, who had endured so many defeats,
was at last victorious and the triumph was doubly sweet. It was not the
work of chance. More than once he had tested the strength of that old
halter rope, covertly, with none to watch, and had felt it stretch and
give a little under the strain of his weight; but he had long since
learned the futility of breaking ropes so long as there were stable
walls or lofty corral fences to contain him. A moment of local freedom
meant nothing, and he had waited until he should find open sky and clear
country; this was his reward of patience.
The short, frayed end of the rope dangled beneath his chin; his neck
stung where the rope had galled him; but these were minor ills and
freedom was a panacea. Later he would work off the halter as he alone
knew how. The wind, swinging sharply to the north and the west, brought
the fragrance of the forests on the slopes of the Eagles, and Alcatraz
started on towards them. He would gladly have waited and rested where he
was but he knew that men do not give up easily. What one fails to do a
herd comes to perform. Moreover, men struck by surprise, men stalked
with infinite cunning; the moment when he felt most secure in his stall
and ate with his head down, blinded by the manger, was the very moment
which the Mexican had often chosen to play some cruel prank. The lip of
Alcatraz twitched back from his teeth as he remembered. This lesson was
written into his mind with the letters of pain: in the moment of
greatest peace, beware of man!
That day he journeyed towards the mountains; that night he chose the
tallest hill he could find and rested there, trusting to the wide
prospect to give him warning; and no matter how soundly he slept the
horrid odor of man approaching would bring him to his feet. No man came