consequently somewhat in their rear. The mustang, who had slept off his
fatigue, had no need of spur; he seemed to enter into the spirit of the
chase--possibly realised that if the chase failed he might have a double
load to carry. He dashed over the rough adobe plain, Roldan holding the
bridle high in his left hand, the coiled lasso in his right. Adan
waddled after, far in the rear. The other horses had fled to the four
winds, but the pursued, occasionally ducking his head and kicking up his
hind legs as if in contempt of the pretensions of mere man, made
straight for the hills. Being undisciplined, however, he got over the
ground clumsily, stumbled once or twice in the wide cracks of the adobe
soil, and finally stopped short for want of wind. He swung about and
glared defiantly at his pursuers out of injected eyes. He had never seen
a lasso before, possibly not a man; but his instinct told him that the
horse and rider behind him were not roving the plain in his own aimless
fashion. He stood pawing the ground and shaking his great red nostrils.
Suddenly to his surprise the part of the horse new to him lifted itself,
and a black coiling something, graceful and swift as a rattlesnake,
sprang through the air with a sharp audible rush. A quarter of a moment
later he neighed with rage and terror: his neck was in a vice.

He gave a leap that nearly dragged Roldan from his saddle; but that
expert young gentleman had secured the lariat to the high pommel of his
saddle in a trice, and Don Jose Perez's mustang had thereafter to bear
the brunt of the strain.

The wild animal pulled and tugged and tore up the ground; but finding
that he but increased his own discomfort, he gradually subsided, and
when Roldan finally turned about and rode slowly toward Adan he followed
meekly enough.