His nose assured him over and over again that this was nourishment, but his eyes scorned the dusty patches eight or ten inches across and half of that in height, with a few taller spears headed out for seed.

When he tried it he found it delicious, and as a matter of fact it is probably the finest grass in the world.
He ate slowly, for he punctuated his cropping of the grass with glances towards the mountains.

The Eagles were growing out of the night, turning from purple-grey to purple-blue, to daintiest lavender mist in the hollows and rosy light on the peaks, and last the full morning came over the sky at a step and the day wind rose and fluffed his mane.
He regarded these changes with a kindly eye, much as one who has never seen a sunrise before; and just as he had always made the corral into which he was put his private possession, and dangerous ground for any other creature, so now he took in the down-sweep of the upper range and the big knees of the mountains pushing out above the foothills and the hills themselves modelled softly down towards the plain, and it seemed to Alcatraz that this was one great corral, his private property.

The horizon was his fence, advancing and receding to attend him; all between was his proper range.

He took his station on a taller hilltop and gave voice to his lordliness in a neigh that rang and re-rang down a hollow.
Then he canted his head and listened.