He passed Loder's Folly, high above the trail--gray, windowless, and
forlorn; the trail dipped into the cool shadows, twisted through the mazy
deeps of Wait-a-Bit Cañon, clambered zigzag back to the sunlit slope, and
curved round the hillsides to join, in long levels, the wood roads on the
northern slopes.

As he turned into the level, Stanley's musings were broken in upon by a
sudden prodigious clatter. Looking up, he became aware of a terror,
rolling portentous down the flinty ridge upon him; a whirlwind streak of
billowed dust, shod with sparks, tipped by a hurtling color yet unknown
to man; and from the whirlwind issued grievous words.

Awguan leaped forward.

Bounding over boulders or from them, flashing through catclaw and
ocatillo, the appearance swooped and fell, the blend disjoined and
shaped to semblance of a very small red pony bearing a very small blue
boy. The pony's small red head was quite innocent of bridle; the bit was
against his red breast, held there by small hands desperate on the reins;
the torn headstall flapped rakishly about the red legs. Making the curve
at sickening speed, balanced over everlasting nothingness for a moment of
breathless equipoise, they took the trail.

Awguan thundered after. Stanley bent over, pelted by flying pebbles and
fragments of idle words.

Small chance to overhaul the prodigy on that ribbed and splintered hill;
Awguan held the sidelong trail at the red pony's heels. They dipped to
cross an arroyo; Stan lifted his head and shouted: