Lady Ebony accepted the hard life. She liked the sudden, wild charges, the long runs under the white stars, the savage freedom which was so costly. When the chestnut stallion sounded the alarm she always led the rushing charge, flying ahead of the reaching, pounding hoofs of the mares and colts, slowing her speed to allow them to overtake her. The band foraged for grass at dawn or in the first grayness of dusk, coming out of a canyon to spread over the mesatop. Then as she pulled the scant grass she remembered the high mountain mesa where the grass grew knee-deep and cold, crystal streams rushed over gleaming rocks. She remembered the red and the yellow and the purple flowers, the solid masses of blue lupine, the flaming orange of acres of daisies. This silent, terrible land was in such sharp contrast to the mountain country that the chestnut’s desire for it seemed foolish to her. Fear of man grew but slowly within her. Man had always been her friend and protector. Sam with his lumps of sugar and his petting, Tex riding up in the fall with the rest of the major’s boys to take her down to the winter pastures. The savage anger of the big stallion when he smelled man scent, the mad charge down the rocky slopes, these were confusing to her, but she accepted them and began to snort and shake her head when the scent came to her. The desert was a mass of broken mesas, eroded hills, and deep-gutted canyons. There were many rivers, but no water. The eyes of the band could see far, but the scene was the same always. And yet this vast world was filled with a silence that was calm and restful. The desert was a canvas of shifting, changing color. Under the white-hot glare of the day the reds and yellows flamed. At dawn and at sunset it was purple and mauve and steel blue. And always to the north stood the shining mountains, etched blue against the sky, with the white snow line gleaming like a crown above the deep blue of the forests. Lady Ebony often stood and stared through the haze at the ragged outline of the Crazy Kill Range. Summer slipped past, and fall rains woke the short grass to life, a brief and hurried growth before the cold and the snow came. The wild ones cropped avidly, pulling the tender shoots from their crowns, tasting them eagerly before swallowing them. The chestnut stallion kept the band moving south, down off the higher benches to the deeper canyons where blizzards would not rage so fiercely. Indian summer slipped away and the purple mists lifted from the cathedral rocks and the spires of the ship rocks. The air cleared and the mornings were cold, with white frost covering the ground. The colts frisked and bucked and raced in little circles until the sun warmed their shaggy coats. Even the mares became spirited when the white frost was on them. Lady Ebony slipped into the slower, less wild way of the mares. She did not run except when the band took alarm, but she still ran at the head of the thundering herd.