Page:Son of the wind.djvu/415

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SON OF THE WIND

face it was there now, a faint shadow of anxiety. "You going to break him to-morrow?" he inquired.

To-morrow? Was there such a thing as to-morrow? "I'm going to break him," Carron answered, "as soon as Jim gets inside the corral with the ropes."

"The second day you never break," the man insisted. "You break the third day. No snow before the third day. Why not break then?"

Carron didn't know why not, except that in the fierce immediacy of his expectations there was no future. He felt that time was not a thing outside of him, passing him. He held it in his hands. "I say to-day—you understand? I break when I please." He pulled his belt a little closer, and felt to make sure his spurs were tight. "Bring the ropes," he called over his shoulder, and walked a few steps farther toward Son of the Wind.

The horse stood canted forward as if overbalanced by the great weight of his chest, his feet spread, head hanging, muzzle touching the ground. The dust trembled with his breath. He was shorn of his beauty. He was no longer a thing of outline and undulation, but of mass, of weight, of thickness, of—yes, it was that—of power. Menace emanated from the motionless creature, promise of infinite capacity, and infinite resources of strength;

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