The warm breeze came down in puffs from the crags; it rustled in the cedars and blew fragrant whiffs of camp-fire smoke into his face; and presently it bore a low, prolonged whistle.  He had never before heard its like.  The sound broke the silence again, clearer, a keen, sharp whistle.

“What is it?” he queried, reaching for his rifle.

“Wild mustangs,” said Mescal.

“No,” corrected Piute, vehemently shaking his head.  “Clea, Clea.”

“Jack, he says ‘horse, horse.’  It’s a wild horse.”

A third time the whistle rang down from the ridge, splitting the air, strong and trenchant, the fiery, shrill challenge of a stallion.

Black Bolly reared straight up.

Jack ran to the rise of ground above the camp, and looked over the cedars.  “Oh!” he cried, and beckoned for Mescal.  She ran to him, and Piute, tying Black Bolly, hurried after.  “Look! look!” cried Jack.  He pointed to a ridge rising to the left of the yellow crags.  On the bare summit stood a splendid stallion clearly silhouetted against the ruddy morning sky.  He was an iron-gray, wild and proud, with long silver-white mane waving in the wind.

“Silvermane!  Silvermane!” exclaimed Mescal.

“What a magnificent animal!” Jack stared at the splendid picture for the moment before the horse moved back along the ridge and disappeared.  Other horses, blacks and bays, showed above the sage for a moment, and they, too, passed out of sight.

“He’s got some of his band with him,” said Jack, thrilled with excitement.  “Mescal, they’re down off the upper range, and grazing along easy.  The wind favors us.  That whistle was just plain fight, judging from what Naab told me of wild stallions.  He came to the hilltop, and whistled down defiance to any horse, wild or tame, that might be below.  I’ll slip round through the cedars, and block the trail leading up to the other range, and you and Piute close the gate of our trail at this end.  Then send Piute down to tell Naab we’ve got Silvermane.”

Jack chose the lowest edge of the plateau rim where the cedars were thickest for his detour to get behind the wild band; he ran from tree to tree, avoiding the open places, taking advantage of the thickets, keeping away from the ridge.  He had never gone so far as the gate, but, knowing where the trail led into a split in the crags, he climbed the slope, and threaded a way over masses of fallen cliff, until he reached the base of the wall.  The tracks of the wildhorse band were very fresh and plain in the yellow trail.  Four stout posts guarded the opening, and a number of bars lay ready to be pushed into place.  He put them up, making a gate ten feet high, an impregnable barrier.  This done, he hurried back to camp.

“Jack, Bolly will need more watching to-day than the sheep, unless I let her loose.  Why, she pulls and strains so she’ll break that halter.”

“She wants to go with the band; isn’t that it?”