With anger rising in him he took stock of the opponent.

The black lacked a good inch of his own height but in substance more than made up for the deficiency.

He was a stalwart eight-year old, muscled like a Hercules, with plenty of bone to stand his weight; and his eyes, glittering through the tangle of forelock, gave him an air of savage cunning.
Decidedly here was a foeman worthy of his steel, thought Alcatraz.

He looked about him.

There stood the mares and the horses ranged in a loose semi-circle, waiting and watching; only the colts, ignorant of what was to come, had begun to frolic together or bother their mothers with a savage pretense of battle.