Outside there were a few moments of terrible danger as the enraged stallion rose in the air to fight this thing around his neck, and this creature pulling at him. As the black horse rose over him with murderous hoofs flaying the air, Angel abandoned his reata and, pulling his pony up almost over backward, beat a swift retreat and saved both pony and himself by a hair’s breadth, while Georgie with unexpected presence of mind laid a stinging lash along the wild horse’s flank. The big stallion turned and thundered his way back down the canyon. It was all over in a moment. Raquel meanwhile rode along the corral rail, panting with the race and the excitement. The pinto would not be roped. Again and again her cleverly flung reata hovered, to be fought aside, bit at, and writhed from. Neither Angel nor Jami, who came up shortly with his prize, could capture the milk and sorrel horse. But Angel roped and threw a pretty little mare that had been caught in the runway and within an hour had her saddled and bridled. He rode her at once up and down the canyon. “I’ll tell you boys, just leave me here. Leave me alone with the pinto. I can handle him, alone, and bring him back. Just let me try it,” Raquel pleaded. And so, unwillingly enough, the boys returned to the Shandy ranch, and Raquel stayed behind with the pinto. For an hour after the sound of the departing party had died away Raquel sat quietly beside the corral fence. Then she began to move along the side, speaking gently to the pony she rode so that the watchful creature quivering over against the rock wall would grow accustomed to the sound of her voice. She came and went while the wild mustang watched her from the far end of the trap corral. She threw grass over the fencing, and waited. She spoke to the pinto, and waited. And finally she rode her pony through the runway and into the corral. The little wild horse stood perfectly still. He was curious. But he would not let them come near him and, as the strange creature drew closer, he whirled about only to find that suddenly a whirring thing settled over his head. Though he fought desperately and shied and wheeled to the other side of the enclosure, and rose up in many straight-legged, round-backed buckings, it remained there. When his fear and his fury were spent a bit he heard the voice of the creature again. There was something in it that arrested him. His trembling stopped. But as he felt the rope pulling on his neck he fought again furiously, and rose up to tear it from him with his forefeet. There was danger in his eye. But the rope pulled him sharply down; a swift twirl round a snubbing post and he found that in spite of running, charging, plunging, biting, he was still held by the thing round his neck.