Then he went back; there was a breath of waiting; the gun barked! The answer to it was a spurt of low-running horses with a white cloud of dust behind, and Corson laughed aloud in his glee.

Every one of the group in the lead was a range horse; the Coles mares were hanging in the rear and last of all, obscured by the dust-cloud, Alcatraz ran sulkily.
"But you wait!" said Marianne, sitting tensely erect.

"Those ponies with their short legs can start fast, but that's all.

When the mares begin to run--Now, now, now! Oh, you beauties! You dears!" The field doubled the first jagged corner of the track and the bay mares, running compactly grouped, began to gain on the leaders hand over hand.

Looking first at the range hosses and then at the mares, it seemed that the former were running with twice the speed of the latter, but the long, rolling gallop of the bays ate up the ground, and bore them down on the leaders in a bright hurricane.