It was arduous work, frisking from one point of vantage to another, never knowing when the Great Enemy might turn.  They could make death speak from the distance of half a mile; under shelter of the hills they might even double back to close range; they might be luring him by the pretense that he was unseen.

In such maneuvers the mare was a dangerous encumbrance, for though she had fallen into the spirit of the thing at once and never uttered even the faintest whinny yet it would be far easier for the men to hear and see two than to detect one.  Alcatraz strove to drive her back, sometimes whirling with teeth bared and rushing at her, sometimes halfrearing as though to strike.  But on such occasions she merely stopped and regarded him with eyes of mild amazement.  She knew perfectly that he would never touched her with tooth or hoof; she also knew that this was dangerous folly—­this badgering of terrible man, but since Alcatraz was not wise enough to follow her she must even follow him in spite of his folly.

She stayed half a dozen lengths in the rear, trembling with excitement, for now they passed the verge of the desert and now they entered a man-made road bordered with shining fences of men; what retreat was there if men closed in from the front and the rear?  Yet she went on with dainty and uneasy steps.  As for Alcatraz, he had pressed up boldly, close to the riders, for now the twilight grew thick and it was hard to make out the glimmering forms before him.  Twice he paused; twice he went on.  There was no real purpose in this following.  He dared not come too close, and yet he hoped to harm them.  He continued, wrung by a confusion of dreads and desires.

He was beset with signs of man even in the darkness.  Over the well-watered fields of the ranch he heard the lowing of cattle and now and again the chorus of the sheep in a nearby pasture land was reawakened when the bell of the leader tinkled.  They were all hateful sounds to Alcatraz, and every step he made seemed to consign him the more definitely to the power of the Great Enemy.

In spite of his boldness he lost sight of the riders among the deeper shadows of the ranch buildings, and he stopped again to consider.  The grey mare came beside him and begged him back with a call softer than a whisper, but he merely raised his head the higher and stared at the huge outlines of the sheds and barns.  To Alcatraz every one of them was a fortress filled with danger that might leap up at him.  Yet he must not turn back after having come all this distance, surely.  He went on.  The road opened into an unfenced semicircle with corrals on every side and from one of these enclosures a horse neighed, and there was a brief sound of many trampling feet.  Some of his own kind were playing there; Alcatraz forgot his hatred a little, forgot man.  He went straight to the corral and put his head over the top bar.