Morgan yelled and swung the quirt.  The response of the roan was another race down the road at terrific speed, despite the pull of Morgan on the reins.  Just as the running horse reached Whistling Dan, he stopped as short as he had done before, but this time with an added buck and a sidewise lurch all combined, which gave the effect of snapping a whip—­and poor Morgan was hurled from the saddle like a stone from a sling.  The crowd waved their hats and yelled with delight.

“Look out!” yelled Jim Silent.  “Grab the reins!”

But though Morgan made a valiant effort the roan easily swerved past him and went racing down the road.

“My God,” groaned Silent, “he’s gone!”

“Saddles!” called someone.  “We’ll catch him!”

“Catch hell!” answered Silent bitterly.  “There ain’t a hoss on earth that can catch him—­an’ now that he ain’t got the weight of a rider, he’ll run away from the wind!”

“Anyway there goes Dan on Satan after him!”

“No use!  The roan ain’t carryin’ a thing but the saddle.”

“Satan never seen the day he could make the roan eat dust, anyway!”

“Look at ’em go, boys!”

“There ain’t no use,” said Jim Silent sadly, “he’ll wind his black for nothin’—­an’ I’ve lost the best hoss on the ranges.”

“I believe him,” whispered one man to a neighbour, “because I’ve got an idea that hoss is Red Peter himself!”

His companion stared at him agape.

“Red Pete!” he said.  “Why, pal, that’s the hoss that Silent—­”

“Maybe it is an’ maybe it ain’t.  But why should we ask too many questions?”

“Let the marshals tend to him.  He ain’t ever troubled this part of the range.”

“Anyway, I’m goin’ to remember his face.  If it’s really Jim Silent, I got something that’s worth tellin’ to my kids when they grow up.”

They both turned and looked at the tall man with an uncomfortable awe.  The rest of the crowd swarmed into the road to watch the race.

The black stallion was handicapped many yards at the start before Dan could swing him around after the roan darted past with poor Morgan in ludicrous pursuit.  Moreover, the roan had the inestimable advantage of an empty saddle.  Yet Satan leaned to his work with a stout heart.  There was no rock and pitch to his gait, no jerk and labour to his strides.  Those smooth shoulders were corded now with a thousand lines where the steel muscles whipped to and fro.  His neck stretched out a little—­his ears laid back along the neck—­his whole body settled gradually and continually down as his stride lengthened.  Whistling Dan was leaning forward so that his body would break less wind.  He laughed low and soft as the air whirred into his face, and now and then he spoke to his horse, no yell of encouragement, but a sound hardly louder than a whisper.  There was no longer a horse and rider—­the two had become one creature—­a centaur—­the body of a horse and the mind of a man.