Читать книгу Beyond Rope and Fence онлайн

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The prairie fire kept gaining upon them. The mothers’ anxiety turned into desperation. They came back to them and getting behind them fairly pushed them along. Suddenly a blazing thistle, driven by the gale, rolled into their midst. All weariness, all aches and pains were at once forgotten. As if they were controlled by a single mind, they bounded forward, re-entering the race for life with an energy which they themselves did not know they had.

The sun with smiling indifference moved rapidly down the lower half of its diurnal arc. The wind tore along behind them with irregular force and with a constant changing of direction. The smoke it had borne all day had grown less and less perceptible. The weight of Queen’s body dragged more and more irresistibly downward. Her head began swimming in waves of weariness that were inundating the whole of her body; but she struggled on bravely, though she vaguely felt that it would not be long before she would be forced to give up the struggle. Then, as she reached the top of a hill, she beheld through the film of moisture on her eyes, the mares and the stronger colts who had gone on ahead, now grazing on the other side of a long, black, dried mud spot down in the hollow.