SON OF THE WIND
high as it would it only carried him higher. Yet, still for a few minutes it struggled by sheer strength, to leap out from under him. Abruptly all that altered, the aspiring for the clouds, the shaking force, the thundering. He was conscious of a change as sharp as if a human mind had conceived it. He felt himself carried sidewise lightly. He was swept. toward the side of the inclosure as if he were to be carried over it; then away to the other side; then, giddily, rapidly backward. Insane, unimagined movements took him here and there, softly, delicately, as if upon feathers; then suddenly, the excruciating twist and fling that meant to be rid of him.
His brain was working furiously, his nerves at full stretch to meet the brute's guile, his hands and his body ready to counteract, to check, to meet every danger as it sharpened. The abundant energy in him steamed out to the conflict. He was in the furnace of action, at play on the edge of life where love of living is keenest, his blood on fire with the joy of violent motion. All the world around him seemed in motion, the woods waved like a curtain; the canvas of the corral revolved slowly; dark spots floated against it. These were the vaqueros' faces. He had no fear of being unseated. Such fears were years behind him; but a fear he had not thought of
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