Her well-groomed spring coat was alive and flaming in the morning sun
that slanted straight under the edge of the roof of trees. She was
herself alive and flaming. She was built like a stallion, and down her
backbone ran a narrow dark strip of hair that advertised an ancestry
of many range mustangs.

"How's the Man-Eater this morning?" he queried, as he unsnapped the
tie-rope from her throat.

She laid back the tiniest ears that ever a horse possessed--ears that
told of some thoroughbred's wild loves with wild mares among the
hills--and snapped at Forrest with wicked teeth and wicked-gleaming
eyes.

She sidled and attempted to rear as he swung into the saddle, and,
sidling and attempting to rear, she went off down the graveled road.
And rear she would have, had it not been for the martingale that held
her head down and that, as well, saved the rider's nose from her
angry-tossing head.

So used was he to the mare, that he was scarcely aware of her antics.
Automatically, with slightest touch of rein against arched neck, or
with tickle of spur or press of knee, he kept the mare to the way he
willed. Once, as she whirled and danced, he caught a glimpse of the
Big House. Big it was in all seeming, and yet, such was the vagrant
nature of it, it was not so big as it seemed. Eight hundred feet
across the front face, it stretched. But much of this eight hundred
feet was composed of mere corridors, concrete-walled, tile-roofed,
that connected and assembled the various parts of the building. There
were patios and pergolas in proportion, and all the walls, with their