“I suppose you went back and got the sled the next day, didn’t you?” inquired Dick.

“Oh, yes,” replied his host, “we recovered it all right, but then we had to go back to the settlement for more grub, of course.  But I was so happy at having escaped with my life that I didn’t mind a little thing like that.”

The three boys laughingly voted Mr. Melton’s story a “curly wolf,” and then, as it was getting late, trooped off to bed.

CHAPTER VIII

With Teeth and Hoofs

One of the most important of the many industries of the ranch was the breeding of horses for the Eastern market.  Mr. Melton had a number of fine horses, but the most valuable of all was Satan, a big black stallion.  His pedigree was as long as his flowing tail, and physically he was a perfect specimen.  His only drawback was a fiendish temper, which it seemed impossible to subdue.  Strangers he would never tolerate, and Mr. Melton seemed to be the only man on the ranch that could go near him without running a chance of being badly kicked or bitten.  Even he was always very careful to keep an eye out for mischief whenever in the neighborhood of the stallion.

All the cowboys hated Satan, and with good reason.  More than one of them bore marks of the horse’s sharp teeth, and all of them could tell stories of narrow escapes experienced while feeding him or otherwise going through duties that called them into the neighborhood of the beautiful but vicious animal.

He was pastured in lonely grandeur in a spacious corral, shunned by all, but apparently happy enough in spite of this.  The three boys often watched him at a safe distance, and regretted that his evil temper made it impossible to be friendly with him.  Satan often lost many a lump of sugar or delicious carrot that he would have gotten had he been of a more friendly nature, in this way resembling many humans who build up a wall of reserve or ill-temper about them, and so lose many of the good things of life.

Soon after the arrival of the boys at the ranch Mr. Melton decided to purchase another stallion, as the demand for good horses at that time was exceptionally great.  Accordingly, one day another horse made his appearance in a corral adjacent to that in which Satan was kept.  The new horse was a good-sized bay, but not quite as large as Satan, although a little younger.  The two corrals were separated by a double fence, so that, while the two horses could get within a few feet of each other, they could never get close enough to fight.

From the very beginning they exhibited a mutual hatred, and it was evident that if they ever got within striking distance of each other there would be trouble.  Everybody on the ranch was strictly enjoined to keep the gates between the corrals securely fastened, however, and there seemed no possibility of the two rivals meeting.

“But if they ever should,” one of the men had remarked, “there’d be some scrap, take it from me.  There’s nothing in the world worse than a fight between two stallions.”