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Show 'i&'Ay&Z VilftUr?-. kJ W.N.U. FEATURES' - -C 1 THE STORY THUS FAR: FUxka'l eolt, long overdue, Is born on the Goose Bar ranch, high In the Rockies. Its 12-year-old owner, Ken McLaughlin, is starUed to see that It is white, and so a throwback throw-back to the Albino, a wild stallion that is the grandslre of Fllcka. The colt is named Thunderhead, but is commonly j known as the Goblin. Ken reveals that Its sire is Appalachian, a black racing itnd owned by Charles Sargent, millionaire million-aire owner of a neighboring ranch. Goblin Gob-lin grows quickly after being put on the range, and soon overtakes the older colts In development and size. He becomes a sort of mascot to Banner, following the big stallion, and learning all he can. The other colts treat him offlshly. CHAPTER VIII "Yimlny Crickets!" exclaimed Gus. "Luk at dot colt buck!" I The Goblin tied himself In a knot, his nose and four hoofs bunched; twisted and bounced stiff-legged three feet off the ground. "It's the bronc in him," said Rob disgustedly, "he'll never make a race horse unless he gets over that." Race horse! The word went through Ken like a flame. Did his 'father really believe, then, ai he himself believed? Gus walked along the trough pouring pour-ing oats from a bucket. The other colts jammed around him, scrimmaging scrim-maging with each other, burying their noses in the trough. Rob's harsh voice rose, reprimanding repri-manding them. He liked good man- ners in his horses. "Here, you fel-. fel-. lows! Cut that out!" At his voice Goblin stopped buck-; buck-; Ing, looked around, shook himself, 1 then, realizing that he was missing , something, rushed to the trough, forced himself through the crowd, biting and kicking, stuck his nose in and took a mouthful of the oats. Then ha whirled away to the fence and stood there, mouthing th oats, thinking It all over. That night, across the vast expanse ex-panse of the snows, flattened under I the bright moonlight, Ken rode jFlicka bareback up the Saddle Back j and down the length of it, looking I for the brood mares. He went very slowly, to make It last longer. He had played a trick on his father. He had kept Flicka In the stable Instead of sending her jwith Banner Just so that he could ,ride her out alone that night and ski back. It hadn't fooled Rob. He had looked at his son hard until Ken had to drop his eyes, but after all he had said he could go. I Far down the ridge Ken found the mares, inky black ghadows : against the whiteness. Banner came sweeping out to get jFlicka. Ken dropped his skis to the ground, dismounted and removed jthe bridle. It took Gobln only one night to .learn that something of the utmost Importance had come Into nil life. Oats. Here was an experience that j touched his very soul. What Independence! Inde-pendence! No need to go following land begging behind his mother! No need to paw and scrape at the snow for a few mouthfuls of dried grass! Here was belly-filling heat and strength and deliciousness spread down the long center trough in the corral; once last night, and now again in the morning. What a strange, foreign, altogether seductive seduc-tive taste! He mouthed and crunched it in delight, and if any other colt jostled him he was quick and vicious with his teeth. A loop of rope fell softly and surprisingly sur-prisingly over his head, drew taught and pulled at him. He reacted like a bomb exploding. The boys had halter-broken him in the fall, but since then the pride and kingliness of the mountains and the freedom of the wind, and the rhythm of the plains, and the strength of the storms had poured into him. His spirit was enlarged and annealed. Not for him to be tamely tied and led about! The fight was on. Two hours later, sweating, hat-less, hat-less, and nursing one hand which had been bruised by a twist of the rope, Rob said, "I guess he's licked. We'll leave him to think It over. Lucky to have got through that without with-out killing him. God! What power!" They were all in the corral, Rob and Nell, Gus and Ken. The Gob-him, Gob-him, worn out at last, successfully haltered but now freed from the snubbing post and the tie rope, was panting, shaking his head to free It of the halter and the trailing rope. Suddenly he reared, pawing at the side of his face. "Ah!" It was a short, explosive cry from Rob. The colt had thrust his foreleg through the check strap of the halter hal-ter and it was caught so ttiat he could not withdraw it. Ken started to run to him. "Stand still," ordered Rob. "If he blows up now and falls over he'll break thnt leg." Ken groaned. The colt, standing on three legs, shuddered and grunted. "Plenty of sense," muttered Rob. "Look at him. He's thinking. Ho knows he's got to be helped." The terror of the colt showed only In his eyes. lie looked at Rob, at Guw, nt Nell and at Ken. Then, carefully, on three legs, he began to cross the corral, going toward Nell. Each plunge of his body Jerked his head down. His foreleg flapped helplessly help-lessly closo to his eye. "Come boy come Goblin I'll fix It for you " Nell's voice was en couraging. Rob and Ken held their breath. Reaching her, the colt halted, bent his head and endured it, trembling, while Nell took his foreleg in her hand. She was obliged to unstrap the halter. When the colt felt the sudden release and his leg touched solid ground, he stood heaving, froth dripping from his mouth. Nell put her hands on both sides of his head. As once before, he leaned against her, his face hidden, resting and comforted. "We'll go," said Rob to Ken. "She'll do the rest. He's accepted her." For an hour Nell played with the colt. She put his halter on and off. She rubbed him dry with a sack. All that he had learned before be-fore came back to him now. 'He gave her his trust, he ate from her hands, he looked into her eyes. She was Goodness. Like the oats. Like shelter. Like warmth. She was for him. She was his mother. At supper, before they drove Ken back to school. Ken asked his father, "Do you think he'll ever be tall?" "I fancy so. That Albino must have been over sixteen hands a whale of a horse. And Goblin throws back to him. He'll probably develop in the same way. Albino might have started with short legs too." "Well then if he grows tall, maybe may-be he can be a racer after all." Rob bent his stern blue gaze on his small son. "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched." Ken dropped his eyes. "No, sir." Early in May came the last big snowstorm, falling on the barren brown earth. In that wrapping of " fnr Something called to the Goblin. snow there must have been a magical, magi-cal, mothering heat, for when the sun peeled it off, the world was green. For the colts, the greengrass meant that school was over. They were freed of their nursemaid and curry combs and halters and tie ropes and were put out on the Saddle Sad-dle Back again, and now they were the yearlings, and the band of yearlings year-lings of the summer before were the two-year-olds. Banner and his brood mares were no longer on the upland. On April first Rob had put them In the fenced meadow below Castle Rock. Here was less exposure for the heavy mares and any early foals that might be dropped. Late spring storms were dangerous to the newborn. new-born. Besides, with breeding season approaching. Banner would have his eye out for new mares, and up on Saddle Back there were young mares, his daughters, who, with the spring, would be coming in heat. The stallion, even from Ave miles away lf he was not under fence would seek them out and force them Into his band. He might fight with and kill some or me young stallions. Goblin tasted his first greengrass. Babyhood was over. He had no mother, needed none. Ho needed not even a trough of oats and the care of men. The whole world under his feet was delicious to cat and his for the taking. And for the first time In his life he was really and completely com-pletely free not even a piebald Granny to demand obedience of him. There Is no such speed on the range as the speed of the yearlings running like deer on the crests and ridges; no such wild, Irresponsible, prankish fun, such flinging of small bodies across ravines, such races on the straightaways, such tossing of heads, such frisking of heels. A yearling has little weight to carry. He Is all long, piston-like legs, ragged hair, and wide, nervous eyes. lie learns to jump all nntural obstacles, he learns the free gallop down the steep mountainside; learns to pick his way nt top speed over stony ground studded with shrubs and badger holes. lie Is always outdoing out-doing himself, surmounting dilllcul-ties dilllcul-ties he never met before. For Goblin there was more thnn fun and freedom galloping over the greengrass on the Saddle Back. With the first breath he drew, standing alone, on a rise of ground looking south, a new personality entered into him, and it was so keen an exciteV ment that his body tingled. It fllledl him to bursting with heat and power pow-er and fierceness. It drove him. He began investigating the range. The Goblin no longer scrabbled. His legs stretched out with a long powerful clutch. The pasterns bounced him a little at each step, so that he went as if on springs. He trotted tirelessly tireless-ly the length of the Saddle Back. Goblin climbed the peaks to stand as Banner had so often stood, his nostrils tremulous for every scent that came, his ears so alertly pricked that they caught sounds from miles away. Facing the ranch, as Banner was wont to do, the same quivering ran through Goblin at the sight and the scent of it. It was Nell. The remembrance re-membrance of her hands touching him, gently untangling the strap from his foreleg, quieting him with her voice then, when it was all over, the way he had rested, his face hidden against her, shutting out the confusion and fear; the way her being there, holding him, had, for the moment, ended all his striving striv-ing and violence. Nell and the oats. Nell and the oats and the ranch and the hay mangers where he had found shelter shel-ter and food in the winter storms. His heart had been won half his heart. The other half I His quivering ceased. He turned away and searched the plains and the high mountains to the south. His nostrils flared, tremulous for wind-messages wind-messages from Colorado, from the Jagged peaks of the Buckhorn Hills, from the high plateaus that lay beyond be-yond them. He faced the ranch and immediately immedi-ately the trembling began. A long cry reached him, faint with the distance. dis-tance. Just Rob shouting to Gus then a dog barking But the sounds went shuddering through him, making mak-ing him plunge and prance as if about to rush down the hill Then with a grunt and sudden twist of his body he turned again. The air today was so crystal clear that the Buckhorn Hills, etching their fantastic outlines against the deep blue of the sky, displayed a variety of rugged detail The soft breeze came, sweet and wild and perfumed, and strange It was all strange and Incomprehensible Incompre-hensible the fierce desire within him to leave the ranch that he loved and seek out those far and unknown un-known places. But it happens sometimes, some-times, even to human beings, that t they are propelled In the direction of their destiny without conscious understanding of what is happening. Something called to the Goblin. He answered with a loud neigh, and flung himself down the slope. Leveling Level-ing off, he fell into his long springing trot, his head high, his nose pointing up, taking the way toward the open country and the Buckhorn Hills. Once the yearlings were out on grass, there was no regular inspection inspec-tion of them during the summer. If anyone chanced to be riding on the Saddle Back a report would be brought home as to their condition and growth, any changes of coloring or appearance, whether the band was split, or whether it had disappeared dis-appeared altogether which would mean that they were feasting in one of the little ravines of the mountainside mountain-side and that the next day would see them out in the open again. But it happened that the very day after Goblin's departure, the boys came home from school. The first thing they did was to fling themselves them-selves on horseback and ride out to see the yearlings the Goblin In particular and after a thorough afternoon's aft-ernoon's search, returned and reported re-ported him missing. Everyone hunted for him. Rob drove the car to the neighboring ranches and made inquiries. He posted a notice at the Post Office. The ranch itself was combed from end to end, for It was possible thai the Goblin, with a precocious and unseemly interest in mares, might have joined one of the older bands. But at the end of a week, Rob gave up, and the work of the ranch went on as usual. He said, shortly, that the colt would turn up npnin. He had run awav he wnulH come back. Horses always did. Once oriented, they returned to the place of their birth. Ken was stupefied with grief. All winter long he had been thinking ol the Goblin, of being with him, of beginning be-ginning his training. With the money he had been able to save from his allowance, ho had bought a stop watch before he left Laramie. Hij fingers found It almost unconsciouslysmooth unconscious-lysmooth and round and cool there In the little pocket of his pants beneath be-neath his belt. To touch It even had been exciting as full of promise as a dinner bell. Now It was like a dead thing cold and heavy. When he went to bed at night h invented fantasies of whnt might have happened to the colt. The earth might have given way beneath his feet as he leaped a ravine, and then a fall, a broken leg lying there dying dead by now, and the coyotes and crawling things eating him. A clump of shrubs could have hidden the corpse so easily and how many thousands of such shrubs there were on the ranch! That hud happened to Dixie, a year ago. They had found tho skeleton six months later. (TO "IC CONTINUED) |