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Show U W.N.U. FEATURES- d.:l ' THE STORY TIIUS FAR: Thunder-bud, Thunder-bud, or the Goblin as he Is commonly known, Is the only white-horse ever born :oa the Goose Bar ranch In Wyoming. Hi rrow from an ugly, misshapen colt to a powerful yearllnc, showing more jnd more characteristics of his great rrandslre, a wild stallion called the AI-jjlno. AI-jjlno. One day the Goblin wanders southard south-ard Into the mountains and finds a high yjlley where wild horses live. He ncounters the Albino, and barely escapes es-capes with his life. Meanwhile his pother Fllcka bears another colt named jouch and Go. Goblin returns, badly Injured. When his wounds are healed, gtn McLaughlin, his 12-year-old owner, oejliis the difficult task of training him. CHAPTER XII I Late one afternoon, after an hour of such struggling, a fury came Into Ken and he began to lash Thun-dcrhead Thun-dcrhead with his crop. He lashed him until he was exhausted. With his other hand he held the reins and forced the horse this way and that. With his heels he spurred him. Tears of weakness and rage stood in his eyes. Suddenly Thunderhead had the Impulse to obey. Generations of treeing had put a knowledge Into him of the horse's part of horseman-ihip, horseman-ihip, a realization that obedience to t skilled rider makes one out of the two, makes teamwork out of the ride, something almost like a dance, s performance that a horse cannot ichieve alone. He leaned his mouth against the feather lightness of Ken's hands, and, obedient to them, exercised skills that he had never exercised before. There was grace to his movement now, grace and control con-trol and technique. There was Joy In it He stopped fighting the bit. As Jf he had learned all that Ken had been trying to teach him, or had known it all along, he swung right or left at the least touch of the rein on his neck or the lean of his rider's body. His steps were pliant, pranc-lag. pranc-lag. He delighted in the quick, easy turns, in responding to the hands that lifted him into a longer and longer stride. When Thunderhead achieved obedience, obe-dience, he enlarged himself. The skill and the will of another being were added to his own skill and will. Ee was having a new experience and It ran through his body like quicksilver. He loved Nell, but nobody no-body had fought him and warred with him and lashed him and taught him obedience but Ken. At last Ken let him out fully and urged him with voice and hands and heels. Thunderhead began to run. His hoofs reached forward and seized the pound with a slashing cut that barely touched and rebounded. A feeling of extraordinary ease went through Ken. No effort was needed, there was no more struggling, strug-gling, he and the colt were one at last The fight was over and now this! Mastery! Underneath him was something of such strength and power pow-er as he had never dreamed of. It surged into him. It was his own. A clump of rocks was ahead of them. Ken did not swerve the least tightening of his knees, lift of his hands and the stallion sailed over, hardly altering his stride. The fence over there by the road! Take it, Thunderhead, and the long soaring leap the light landing Everything seemed different to Ken. He looked around. He saw, felt apprehended as he never had before, as if he had been let into a lecret world that no one else knew nything about. The wind whipped his cheeks and filled his mouth and heat upon his eyeballs and whistled in his ears. The pace! The incredi-hle incredi-hle speed! The strange floating gait! Those long reaching strides seemed almost slow, like the overhand itrokes of a. swimmer. Then the lightning-quick slash at the ground, again the rush through the air. No obstacles could stop him. There cre none. They floated over them. The world rolled out from under the stallion's hoofs. They were cov-ru38 cov-ru38 ground Ken had never seen be-He be-He made no effort to guide They were on the mountains -they were in the sky Clouds, bees, earth, streamed past. A group : antelopes! He saw their fright-Md fright-Md leaps their startled faces "ey were gone! Ken's consciousness as fused with all that there was in world. He had gathered it in. Je was the pulse-beat. He was the j nel This is it. He sat at the supper table that Nght in a dream, unable to speak or at B wondered if Thunder! id ould ever do it again. When He .JJ4 dismounted and unsaddled the , JJR find had stood looking into his I re--locking 11110 the future, his J nM trembling because he knew, ' S' teynd aU doubt, what the J jorse could do he saw that Thun-JJJead Thun-JJJead still hated him. The dark, "itfUs-rlngGd eye looked at him side-si side-si ys, viciously. Tjow did the colt go today, Ken?" Jj wentbetter, dad." i.3d you Set him to go forward - tojer the saddle?" J sir." you get him running?" "Sort of- kjj McLaughlin looked search- 1 iy at bis son. He asked no more. 1 finv. WQ a warm August evening. U 2wa drlvln8 t0 8 ranch 80uth' Ht v own to Inspect a mare, nad been told she was a regis tered thoroughbred, had been a racer, rac-er, and was for sale cheap. The number of his own brood mares was down to sixteen. They were getting old. He had lost four in the last two years, and two more must be sold before fall because they would not live through another winter win-ter on the range. Colorado farmers who kept a few horses stabled through the winter might buy them for the sake of the foals they would drop in the spring. They would bring very little at auction but any-thing any-thing would be better than feeding them to the coyotes on the Saddle Back. Nell was driving with him. They were on one of the back roads, not much more than wheel tracks on the prairie grass. It was at just that moment of the evening when headlights are of no use and daylight day-light is not enough. The car swept ahead so swiftly, and at times so roughly, that Nell was about to protest, pro-test, but one look at Rob's face stopped her. He had his angry driving driv-ing look. Nell withdrew a little into her own corner and sighed. It might have been a pleasant evening. She always al-ways enjoyed a drive at the end of the day when her work was done, but if he was going to be like this "Gypsy hasn't long to go either," said Rob abruptly. "At this rate, my band of brood mares will soon be cut in half." "Couldn't you put some of the younger mares In the brood mare bunch?" asked NelL "There are those three five-year-olds the sorrels sor-rels they're wonderful mares." "To be bred back to their own sire?" "That's line-breeding, isn't It? "A new purebred stallion!" exclaimed ex-claimed Nell. You're always talking about it." "But you can't do it indiscriminately. indiscrimi-nately. They have to be picked individuals. in-dividuals. There isn't one of those mares good enough." "What' 11 you do for brood mares then, Rob?" "Buy some more, I suppose, the way I bought all the others. Travel around to the race tracks pick up mares of good blood that can't race any more." Nell made no answer. Rob wanted want-ed to fight. He didn't want to see a way out or to make any compromise. compro-mise. She changed the subject. "Rob, I've been thinking about Thunderhead. Ken is so awfully happy about him now the speed he's developed. Do you think it's absolutely necessary to geld him?" "He's a two-year-old," said Rob harshly. "All the other twos are to be gelded, why shouldn't he be?" "Ken is simply having a fit about it," said Nell. "Ken is a pain in the neck." "Besides," said Nell, "he's not really two yet just twenty-two months." Rob explained, with weary patience pa-tience as if to a child of subnormal intelligence, "We wait until they are two to geld them in order to give their necks time to develop. But Thunderhead's neck is already developed de-veloped like a three-year-old's. He could have been gelded six months ago." Rob's tone of voice served notice on her that he didn't want to hear any more of that. She closed her lips tight but the seething thoughts went on behind them. They themselves them-selves were heading into financial disaster just as fast as they could gallop. It was this fall that Howard was to go east to Bostwick's Preparatory School, and the tuition was twelve hundred dollars and half of it had to be paid in advance. Where was that money going to come from? And the money for his outfit and traveling expenses? She hadn't dared ask Rob. There would have to be eight hundred dollars by September the tenth. Perhaps there wouldn't be. At the thought of abandoning aban-doning their plans for the boys' education edu-cation her hand began to tap nervously nerv-ously on her knee. No. Anything but that It would only be two years at Bostwick's and then into West Point and no more expense. A way must be found. But that wasn't all. What about their own expenses for the coming year? They would need two thousand dollars to live on, and there was a thousand dollars of unpaid un-paid bills hardware, veterinary, elevator, el-evator, machine repair shop and that five thousand dollar note to be paid in October it had to be paid. Last year the man had extended it for a year and said that was the last time. She sat nervously upright. "Rob is Bellamy going to take the lease for the sheep again this fall?" "I don't know. Haven't asked him yet. But I suppose he will. Why?" The last word was shot at her belligerently. bel-ligerently. "Well I was just wondering. The lease money that fifteen hundred dollars it means a good deal to us." Rob playfully grabbed her by the head with his free hand and shook her. "Now you're worrying about money. Don't bother your little head about that. I'll attend to it." "Ouch!" said Nell, catching at her head. "You hurt." She rearranged her hair, and returned to her thoughts. Rob, of course, would never nev-er see or think what he didn't want to. But suppose he were different? Suppose he were openminded and reasonable what ought they to do? What did people do when they had spent half their lives doing something some-thing that was, apparently, going to bring them to the poorhouse if continued? con-tinued? They did not fling good years after bad. They changed. They took another road. But Rob? It was as if he were hypnotized as if he could not turn or change. He wouldn't even discuss it. Suddenly she felt angry. Here they were partners in the greatest possible enterprise en-terprise family life and she must suffer the consequences of failure as well as he, yet he would never allow al-low discussions on unpleasant themes. He would shout at her, browbeat her, create such friction and unpleasantness that she could not bear it it wasn't fair. Suddenly Rob burst out: "I can see that I've been awfully dumb." "What do you mean?" "I've always thought that you were with me." ' "With you?" "In everything I did. The ranch, my work, the horses, my plans everything." ev-erything." "But Rob of course I" "You used to be," he Interrupted. "I don't know when you changed. I've just been going along like a fool taking it for granted." "Taking what for granted?" "That you had confidence in me." "You oughtn't to put it that way. Married people ought to talk things over with each other and you never wilL It Isn't that I haven't confidence confi-dence in you " "But you haven't. That Is, you have no confidence in my ever making mak-ing a go of the horses. I know I will if I hang on. I'll force it to succeed. You used to know it too. You were with me. But you don't know it any longer." Nell was silent. "Just exactly what would you like me to do?" he asked grimly. "I I don't know " "That's just it. You don't know. You don't know anything about it. But while I'm doing all I can to make a go of it lying awake nights planning how I can keep up or improve im-prove my horses and find the best markets, you're just sitting back waiting for the crash so that you can pick up the pieces." "Well," she suddenly whispered, "we are on the downgrade, have been for years. You've said it yourself. your-self. You're the one who told me. You're the one who's worrying yourself your-self sick about it And we're not making any sort of change in our lives, in our plans, so why expect a change in the results?" Rob stood facing her, feet apart, his dark head, so significant and arresting, dropped on his chest. The moonlight changed his ruddiness of skin to a greenish pallor. Suddenly Nell held out her arms nothing mattered she went to him. He pushed her away. "Don't, Nell, I can't stand it." She backed away, feeling humiliated. humili-ated. She might have known he didn't want comfort or coddling, he wanted his head up again before her. But what could she do about that? While she stood, clasping her hands frantically together and fighting fight-ing the tears that in a moment could be a flood, Rob walked away from her and disappeared. In such moments of unendurable hurt, lovers run away from each other. Nell walked down toward the corrals cor-rals and stood against the fence. Presently she saw the horses approaching, ap-proaching, Thunderhead and Touch And Go. He came to the fence, she spoke his name and held out her hand. He came close, she laid her hand on his face. "Thunderhead Thunderhead " He felt her grief as horses always do, and shoved his nose against her. Touch And Go must do as her big brother did and pushed her nose up for petting too. When Nell went in, half an hour later, she found Rob sfUing in his den, reading the paper, knees comfortably com-fortably crossed and pipe in his mouth. (TO BE CONTINUED) |