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Show "I suppose you know that it doesn't often happen that a man rides a stallion in the act of rounding round-ing up a band of mares and lives to tell the tale." Ken nodded his head in bewilderment. bewilder-ment. "He was awful queer. He didn't mind having me around or on his back, but just didn't seem to notice me, or hear anything I said. And he wouldn't obey me at all any more." This last was in an aggrieved ag-grieved tone. Rob shouted with laughter. "Obey youl I should say-ay-ay not! Who are you to interfere in a moment like that!" Ken tilted his head assentingly. The joke was on him all right. He had a look Rob had seen on him many times before always caused by one of these soul-struggles over horses. He was white and hollow-eyed and looked as if he'd lost ten pounds. "You look like a picked chicken," said Rob dryly. "You always manage man-age to get yourself all run down just when it's time to go to school." "School!" "Yes. But I suppose we ought to be thankful that you came home all in one piece." Something was choking in Ken's throat. School again! Just school! After all the year's hopes and the work and the planning! After having hav-ing been a racing man! Owner of the wonder horse! Practically over with such childish things as school! And already possessed of his father's permission to stay out of school and THE STORY THUS FAR: Thunder-head Thunder-head Is the only white horse ever foaled at the Goose Bar ranch In Wyoming. Be 1 a throwback to his Ereat jrandslre, the Albino, a wild stallion. His 14-year-ld owner, Ken McLaughlin, hopes he will become a famous racer. He Is entered en-tered at a meet In Idaho. Rob McLaughlin, McLaugh-lin, Ken's father, sells off most of his horses and turns to sheep raising. Ken and his brother Howard mount Thunder-bead Thunder-bead and Fllcka and ride Into the moun- O tains. Thunderhead breaks loose and , Joins a herd of wild horses led by the Albino. Al-bino. In a furious battle Thunderhead kills the Albino. Ken rides him while he rounds up the mares. At last Thunderhead Thunder-head flings Ken ofT and disappears. CHAPTER XXIII Rob's slight sardonic smile showed a line of white teeth beside his pipe-tem. pipe-tem. "There's still nature, my boy don't forget that I God made horses, you know, Ken. Not domestic domes-tic horses, to labor and toil for men. Not race horses prima donnas in stable-boudoirs, with valets and ladies' maids and trainers But wild horses! Ken sighed deeply and wearily, nodding his head. Well he knew about Nature now. "And between you and me, Ken," continued his father, "every horse- a lover in the world has to take oft his hat to the wild horse a horse that acts like a horse as God made him not according to some cooked-up cooked-up plans of men." Ken gave perfunctory attention to what his father was saying but his mind was on one thing only. Where exactly was Thunderhead now? How exactly could he be got back? "We hunted up there at the far end of the valley as long as we could," he said. "If Howard hadn't had to get home, we would have had more time. I wanted Howard to take Flicka and leave me up there for a while. But he wouldn't. He said we had to stick together." "Quite right. It would have been dangerous. Besides, you had no borse. How would you have got borne?" Ken averted his eyes, ashamed to ay that his father or Gus would have had to come for him. "I might tiave got hold of Thunderhead again." "Ah! A pretty long chance!" There was a silence while Rob sat to thought. Then he said, "Have you any idea where he took the mares?" "Well, we went far enough up the valley to see that it went out into other valleys, and then other valleys branched off of those. There wasn't any real rampart that volcanic wall I told you about up at the other oth-er end just a lot of mountains going go-ing up one behind the other, higher and higher. That left a lot of places where the horses could have gone. It just looked like a a labyrinth of mountains and draws and gorges and valleys " Ken turned his head away again oppressed by the memory mem-ory of the scene the clouds of snow, the blazing glaciers, pockets of emerald em-erald grass, the soaring grandeur of the peaks. He couldn't even try to put it into words. "It was just hopeless. There wasn't a sign of the mares or Thunderhead. Thun-derhead. We had trailed them all the way up the valley of course it was easy to see their tracks, especially espe-cially Thunderhead's. But for the last two hours it snowed. I think it snows every day up there. And it was getting dark.-" "What time was it when Howard found you after you fell off Thunderhead?' Thun-derhead?' Ken thought a moment. He wasn't going to tell his father that he had lain there sobbing his heart out for an hour. "Well I don't know exactly ex-actly I was asleep " "After you fell off?" Rob glinted a little, looking at his son. Ken flushed. "Yes. I was so dead tired. And and I just lay there. When I felt Howard shaking me and looked up and saw him and Flicka there, I didn't know where I was or what had happened for a O moment But I think it was about noon." Knocked cold and didn't know it, thought Rob. Aloud he said meditatively, medita-tively, "You sure can get yourself in the damndest predicaments! You must have as many lives as a cat! Anyone else would be dead if they'd been caught in half the jams you've been in! First with Flicka. And then the eagle got your gizzard. And now this." Ken's head swayed In complete agreement. Rob smoked for a few moments. In his mind the scene lived again. The hidden valley, the fight of the two stallions "I'd like to have seen that fight!" he exclaimed. The mere thought of it made Rob Oget to his feet and walk around the room. "It's the damnedest thing that ever was! Why, Kenl didn't it occur to you that all he had to do was throw out one paw the way he did to the Albino and it would have gone through your head like butter!" but-ter!" "But he wasn't mad at me. He didn't pay any attention to me at all." Rob dropped in his chair again. He was bursting with pride. He leaned forward and squeezed Ken's knee and in spite of himself the boy winced. got all this blood from. It was the very first wound of the battle. Then he got that bad one in his throat I told you about, but nothing seemed to bother him. He didn't act as if he even knew he was wounded." "Probably didn't. And probably the Albino didn't know he was killed. I often think pain and death don't enter into the consciousness of horses at all. What about your friend, the one-legged eagle? No sign of him on this trip?" "He came down. Six of them came down to eat up the Albino." "Ahl They'll pick his bonesl A true burial of the plains!" Rob's face lit up. "A great old boy! I've always had a corner in my heart for him, even if he did nearly brain me!" Ken had forgotten this. His father fa-ther showed him again the scar over his temple where the Albino's hoof had left its mark and It seemed to draw them all into a close little knot. "What a great horse!" said Rob leaning back again. "Ken, there are outstanding individuals in the animal ani-mal world as well as the human. The Albino was like Napoleon! Or like Caesar! To be close to one of those Is like being close to a charge of T.N.T." "Yes, sir," said Ken wearily. He knew. Rob made a little gesture with his hand. "Well! The king is dead! Long live the king!" "You mean Thunderhead?" "Thunderhead. The Throwback." And that took them both back to the day three years ago when the ungainly un-gainly little white foal had been born and everyone had thrown at him the epithet, Throwback'l "Dad" "Well?" Ken hardly dared to say it. "Do you suppose if you took a lot of men maybe ten or twenty with horses and lariats up to the valley I could show you the way you could get him back? Because you see there's only a little more than a month before the race " Rob answered gravely, "It would take a regiment of cavalry and then they wouldn't get him." Ken was silent. He was not surprised. sur-prised. Moreover, deep within him, something revolted against the idea of taking such an expedition into his valley. The band of mares broken up, some of them killed during the roping, colts stolen, separated from their dams, coarse shouts and curses and brutal acts desecrating that remote, re-mote, inviolate animal sanctuary he'd almost rather lose his horse. Ken lifted his white face with a look of straight-seeing courage and resignation in his eyes. "Dad," he said again, and paused. For the hundredth time in his tortured mental men-tal processes he had come to the same conclusion that there was only one slim hope. "Won't he come back, dad?" "Of his own accord?" "He always has before. This is his home and he's oriented. You always said be would, and he always al-ways did." There was a little sadness in Rob's sardonic smile this time. "Ken! You know horses! He's got a band Of mares now, hasn't he?" "Yes, sir." "Will he abandon them?" The question needed no answer. Ken had reached that same conclusion conclu-sion in his own thoughts every time. His head 'sank on his chest and Rob saw that the boy was trembling all over. He hadn't yet had a bath or change or a night's sleep or a solid meal. "You go clean up now, son, and get ready for supper,, or you'll be keeling over. You've had a great adventure. It didn't end the way you wanted it to, and I'm as disappointed disap-pointed as you are about losing Thunderhead." "Oh, are you, dad?" Ken raised his head and his eyes went to his father's face. Somehow it eased the pain to have his father disappointed disappoint-ed too. "Yes, I am. I've worked with him. And I had come to have confidence con-fidence in him and his future. He's a great horse. Besides, you know, I needed the money " "I know!" Ken's face was almost happy. "But we're both out of luck and we'll just have to take it." "With fortitude," suggested Ken with a gleam in his eye. "Exactly. No use crying over spilt milk. I can tell you this, if it'll make you feel any better" They both got to their feet. "I'm damned proud of you!" "Of me!" "Of you. My gosh, Ken! You rode a stallion at work! No one but a fool even goes near a stallion when he's rounding up his mares lei alone tries to mount him or could stick if he did!" "I didn't stick." "Sure you did till he darned near killed you. You behaved with courage cour-age You tried to get your colt back. You tried to master him. You got on him and rode him to hell and gone. You did something I've never nev-er dune- and I'm proud as punch!" Ken was overwhelmed. "Of cuui.se." added Rob. "I suppose all this was to be expected from a fel-luw fel-luw who mice pulled off such a stunt as tu get a zero in Englishl I never nev-er did that either!" .TO BE CONTINUED) "After you fell off?" Rob asked. go to Saginaw Falls with Charley Sargent! Rob's eyes were running over him critically. "You look pretty sick. Aside from dirt and scratches and getting tuckered out, nothing happened hap-pened to you this time, did it? No claws in your belly? No broken bones?" Ken raised his right arm carefully and moved it about in an experimental experi-mental manner. "What happened to that arm?" "When I slid off Thunderhead and saw I was going to land on my face I threw this arm up gave it a crack." Rob examined the arm and shoulder. shoul-der. Ken winced several times. "Nothing broken. Anything else?" v "Well, coming home on Flicka I couldn't straddle her, my legs ached so I had to sit side-saddle." Rob laughed. "I've had that feeling feel-ing myself. That came from riding the stallion when he was snaking. It wrenched every muscle in your body." Rob's eyes went over Ken minutely, minute-ly, noting the ragged, filthy clothes, the hands with dirt ground into the hastily washed scratches and abrasions, abra-sions, a dark bruise down one side of his face, stains of blood inside one leg of his bluejeans. "I did think I was a goner once," said Ken. 'When was that?" "When I fell oft" Thunderhead and the mares were coming right behind." be-hind." "No horse will step on a living thing if it can be avoided. And 1 suppose they were pretty well scattered." scat-tered." "Well they weren't spread much " "If they have time to see. they'll jump." "That's what they did. It was as if the light went on and off It would be light over- me. and then dark, and I'd get a squint of hoofs and belly -then light aaain But they sure spattered me all over with dirt and gravel." "I'll say they did What's thai blood on the inside of vour pants I leg?" 1 "That's from Thunderhead." said ' Ken. "Was he much cut up'" I "A lot of biles and rips A deep One on hie sidf '"rl shi.uldi-i that I |