Blaze Face was tied in a small corral, on the side farthest from the gate, and the gate was left open. The sun had gone down by this time and already the darkness was coming on.
III: A Waiting Game
CINCHFOOT couldn’t understand why Blaze Face had been taken away from him. Everything seemed wrong after that. Cinchfoot stood on a high hill on the trail over which they had taken Blaze Face. It was dark now and the moon had come up over a long line of hills toward the east. The stars were shining, too, and the western night was about as bright as a night could be. Cinchfoot had already learned that the night had for him both advantages and disadvantages. He knew he could get around and go places in the dark without so much danger of being seen, but at the same time he knew that other things could hide and see him and so he might be in danger without knowing where the danger was. That’s why Cinchfoot stood on the hill in the silence and looked and waited.
At last he started walking down the hill and when he was on the level below he started at a gallop across the plain. During the last of the daylight he had seen the place where they stopped with Blaze Face. But it was so far in the distance things looked dim there. He had seen the cowboys on their horses riding around the place and he had seen what he knew was a small herd of horses without men on their backs, horses that were loose but not free! Cinchfoot knew that when those men got up close to a small herd of loose horses they took the horses away with them. He was almost afraid at this time even to think about it. He stopped and stood still for a minute in the moonlight. The wind was blowing in his face and he not only scented the horses but he got the man scent, too. And now he saw a light in the distance. Two of them, in fact. The lights came from two small windows in the ranch house. Cinchfoot snorted a little. After a time he started at a trot. It was night now, so he would come closer to the place. Presently he stopped, listened, snorted and then trotted forward, when he stopped again. This time he got a scent that he recognized. It was that of his pal, Blaze Face. Cinchfoot sent forth a nicker toward his crony. Immediately the nicker was answered by one from Blaze Face.
Cinchfoot went at a gallop now and he didn’t stop until he was close enough to the horse corrals to see the horses in one of them, but as yet he couldn’t see Blaze Face. Just then a low nicker from Blaze Face told Cinchfoot in what corral he was. And again Blaze Face nickered low to him as if saying, “Come over here, pal! I’m over here.” But Cinchfoot was suspicious of things generally around the place. He wanted to be careful. He had not as yet felt the hands of men on him, and while he was looking, he was also ready to run. He was well aware that if the men got him they would hold him so he couldn’t get away. He would be like the other horses in the corral, horses that he could now see milling around in there a little way beyond him. The horses did not seem to like it in the corral. Now and then one of them would squeal and Cinchfoot knew what that sound meant. It meant that the horses in the corral were quarreling and now and then biting one another. He took a few steps closer to this corral where the horses were. They again started milling and squealing and biting. Once a number of them ran and crowded against the side of the high pole corral and if it had not been very strong the horses would have crashed out. Cinchfoot thought in his own language, “Yes, they all want to get out of that place but they can’t. These two-legged animals that ride horses have shut these horses in here; at least they have had something to do with it and I’m suspicious. I’ll walk around here and look things over, but I’ll take no chances. I don’t aim to let them shut me up! Not by a good deal. I’ve got plenty things to do of my own. I’ll see now what’s the matter with Blaze Face. It seems he keeps standing in another place. Ah! there he is, in there, and the gate open! Yes, there it is, wide open! I’ll nicker to him and see what he says.”
Cinchfoot nickered low and Blaze Face nickered low in return and called Cinchfoot, telling him to come closer. There was no doubt about Blaze Face’s sincerity, but unfortunately he didn’t know what he was calling Cinchfoot into. Cinchfoot walked up to the open gate, got scared, snorted, ran off a little and then back he came. He did this three times. The third time he galloped up to the open corral as if this time he surely would go in and up to Blaze Face, but again he stopped short, spraddled his front legs to stop himself, and with his head low, his eyes looking scared, he snorted again. Somehow that opening seemed suspicious. It looked almost too easy to go in there. And why wouldn’t Blaze Face come on out? In the same way, why did the horses in the big corral keep milling around and squealing and biting each other? Always before Cinchfoot had seen these same horses run away from the men even when the men were a long distance off. But now they were caught! And so Cinchfoot was suspicious. He wanted so much to run up to his old pal, Blaze Face. In fact, at times he could hardly resist. The only way he kept from going in was to stop suddenly at the opening, whirl and run as hard as he could out on the open plain. He would tear out as if maybe he was going into new country and stay there, but each time he would stop, hold his head high and look back. Then he would hear Blaze Face nicker and back Cinchfoot would come!
It was hard to know which way to run, away from the horse corral or back to it. Then he seemed decided on a plan, and he carried it out. He galloped clear around both the horse corrals, snorting as he galloped as if to scare away anything that was not friendly to him. But Cinchfoot did not happen to dash suddenly into one of the dark stables nearby. If he had he would have startled a cowboy and embarrassed him considerably. That cowboy was Clem Brown. Clem had taken up his place in the dark stall of a stable and he knew he would stay there until morning and watch, unless Cinchfoot at last galloped into the corral and up to Blaze Face. Clem knew that if he could capture the colt this would save a hard run after him. He knew that if Cinchfoot once dashed into the corral and he could slip out and shut that gate quick enough, the colt was his. Clem had taken this dark place to watch because it was easy for him to see Cinchfoot and all he did in the bright moonlight outside. At present Clem began to fear that Cinchfoot would find him! Cinchfoot did run around another nearby stable. He even looked in at the door and snorted but there was nothing inside. He stood there for a minute in the moonlight and Clem could see his ears moving quickly back and forth. But Cinchfoot quit his investigation after that and Clem thought, maybe the reason he didn’t run around and look in at this stall in the stable was because this building was on a creek bank and the door here was pretty close to a deep ravine. Cinchfoot likely did not care to take any chances there, not knowing much about the place anyway. So he looked around generally except the one place where Clem was hiding.
The horses in the big corral all at once got quiet. They had quit milling around and squealing and biting, for the time at least. Cinchfoot walked up close to this corral and looked in at the horses standing there. As it happened he looked right in the face of an old brown mare that wasn’t any too well satisfied at being cooped up in the corral. She snorted loudly when Cinchfoot woke her up, from a dream maybe, and she seemed to say to him, “What do you want around here! Waking a person up like that! They’ll get you next. You better use your legs while you can!” Something like that must have been in what the old mare snorted, for Cinchfoot lit out from the place at a dead run. This time he ran all the way up to the top of a ridge a quarter of a mile away. There in the moonlight he ran back and forth, while he snorted to his heart’s content. He was free and he felt good about it. The only trouble out here was he had no company and in particular old Blaze Face didn’t seem to leave the corral.
All was still out here along the ridge and in the valley around the ranch. In fact things were too still. Cinchfoot couldn’t hear anything except his own scared snorts and now and then the yip, yap of a coyote. But pretty soon another sound was heard. It was the nicker of a horse that floated out in the night from a point near the ranch house. Cinchfoot recognized it because that was the same nicker he had heard many times before. It was Blaze Face calling to Cinchfoot and he knew it. No use to try to run away from it. Nothing was right, no matter where, unless Blaze Face was close by. Cinchfoot again started at a run for the place where that nicker came from. And a change had come over him now. He was still afraid, but not so much; he had got a little used to things around the place. As he ran up close to the corral this time, he looked over at the ranch house. It looked safe enough. It was dark there and not a sound came from it. Cinchfoot snorted loudly as he looked at the long low house. But nothing happened. The house remained