The chase led up a rocky cañon filled with post-oak, along a mesa, through a gap, skirted a summit, and dipped downward into another cañon. Now we were straightened out for my familiar peaks. Suddenly I became aware that the pursuers had dropped back, and, easing in my run, I saw Sloan beating the sorrel over the head with his rope. He was ever thus, blaming his mount on the least excuse. Two days and a night I fled. Of course it was necessary to pause for a few hours to eat grass and to drink, but fear of Sloan kept me moving. I struck south, then westward. Fences delayed my flight considerably in the valleys, but I had had experience with them, and roamed along until I discovered a spot where the wires were partially down and could be jumped, or until I found a watergap. I suppose I covered one hundred and sixty miles, but not all in a straight line by any means, and at sundown of the second day I was in a goodly range of hills. Here I rested. A band of bronchos wandered into a draw where I fed that night, and I joined them. We roved where we willed, and the rain fell abundantly and the grass was green and plentiful. Why is it one can never be entirely happy? If one be breast-high in succulent zacaton, a fly will mar the feast. I have observed a mare in a field of alfalfa, neglecting what she could have without effort, to stretch unavailingly through the fence after a tuft of tough Johnson-grass; in fact, I have done that myself. Here was I with millions of virgin acres in which to wander; all I could eat; agreeable companions. Yet I pined to hear a man’s voice. That sounds inexplicable, but it is the truth. Even Sloan’s harsh bass tones would have been welcome, after six months of freedom. Man’s companionship had been bred in me, and though his presence might bring terror, yet I longed for it, and the master-grip of his hand. Winter passed and the long, dry season opened in a blaze of heat. A horseman bore down on us one day, from the south, and we massed swiftly for escape. Within a mile, two more riders appeared, and my companions increased their pace to a gallop. Only I, of all the band, knew what this meant. The others were bronchos who had never felt the rope and they ran blindly, ignorant of the cordon closing in from every direction. But I was cleverer. Suddenly darting from the herd, I sped within sixty feet of a cowboy--not close enough for his loop--and gained the mouth of a cañon. Up this I spurted, the rider in hot chase.