Midnight and the pinto whirled and were standing on high ground at the upper end of the mesa. The pinto tossed her head and leaped away toward the mares as she saw the lord of the herd charging toward her. Midnight sent his own challenge ringing across the meadow as he leaped to meet the big stallion. His feelings were much different than they had been at their first meeting. Now he was eager to accept the challenge to battle, and savage rage, as great as the rage of the chestnut, filled him. He had his father’s fighting blood in his veins. The two stallions crashed together and the greater weight and power of the chestnut sent Midnight staggering back. He was not yet so rugged and heavy as his father. He recovered his balance and reared with teeth bared and hoofs pounding. The master of the band raised his massive hoofs and struck back as he reached for Midnight’s neck with his teeth. The two stood like boxers, hammering away at each other. Again Midnight was pounded back. The chestnut had only one idea in his head and that was to smash this black stallion who had dared challenge his mastery. It would not have mattered had he known that Midnight was his son. He was sure he would soon end the career of the black; he knew his advantage and rushed upon the colt with savage eagerness. Midnight met the next charge and was hammered back once more, giving ground slowly as the heavy hoofs pounded him and the bared teeth ripped tufts of hair from his shoulders and neck. Slowly the chestnut pushed him toward the rim of the canyon. But Midnight refused to turn tail and run. This time he had a different urge to keep him fighting. He was not a lonesome colt seeking companionship, he was a stallion desiring the rightful place of a leader. He could easily have outdistanced the chestnut had he chosen to flee, but he was filled with hot rage. He had a wild desire to kill the big stallion who was battering him. Slowly he gave ground, moving down the gentle slope of the mesa toward the rocky edge of the canyon. Behind him the walls of Shadow Canyon dropped away in a sheer face a hundred feet in height. There was no brush-padded ledge close under the rim at that point, but the black paid no attention to the danger. Foot by foot the two moved down the slope. Blood spurted from wounds on shoulders and necks. The smell of it increased the fury of the battling stallions. Their savage screams rang through the spruce timber and echoed back from the walls of the castle rocks.