had reached the woods-edge where he had left the big roan, had vaulted upon his back and, riding as swiftly as was prudent through the tall grass and beds of maiden cane, had struck the trail of the three wild horses near the spot where they had passed from the meadow at its lower end into the woods.
The trail was plain to the eye. The scent was strong where the wild horses had brushed through the rank grass. From that moment Manito-Kinibic knew what game it was that his rider hunted; and in that moment all the strange smouldering hatred of his nature was focused upon the wild stallion which, as his nose told him, had passed that way with one or two mares.
Manito-Kinibic leaped forward with long bounds, his nostrils dilated, his ears flattened against his head. Corane the Raven, smiling grimly, let him go. It might be true, as the Choctaws believed, that the wild stallion was sprung from the mighty horse of the Prince Soto himself. But surely this huge implacable horse that now followed on the wild one's trail must have in his veins the blood of the great black steed which the Evil Spirit bestrode when he stood, wrapped in cloud, on the bare summit of Younaguska peak and hurled those awful arrows of his that flashed like lightning.
