He was about to turn when he saw a slight movement against the rocks. Startled and frightened, he drew back. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t think of it as being Flame. He was too scared for that. He backed away quickly, stumbling and falling to one knee. Then came a sudden movement from the blacker-than-black form in front of him. He turned and ran, cutting across the chamber. And then he heard the heavy thud of hoofs upon sand, saw the gigantic shape of the red stallion coming from his right! Steve turned again, as frightened as the stallion, who veered sharply away from him.

Steve saw Flame and the crane at the same time, and tried to avoid them both by flinging himself to the sandy floor. Then came a wild, horrible scream from the stallion as his hind legs caught in the rim of the short, steep embankment descending to the pit. Thrown off balance by the abrupt grade, Flame pummeled the earth with his forelegs in an attempt to regain his balance. But his hind weight carried him over the rim, and before Steve’s frantic eyes the red stallion slid into the pool of sucking death!

SUCKING DEATH

11

For a few minutes all fear left the red stallion and fighting fury took its place. His hindquarters were in the pit, but he still held on to the rim with his pounding forelegs. He was fighting the battle of his life for his life, and his body swelled with untamed fierceness.

But the pit was an enemy far more formidable than the burly Piebald, more deadly than any living creature. And as the red stallion beat the earth with his forelegs, the pit slowly, steadily pulled his hindquarters deeper and deeper into its soft, yielding bosom.

Steve had remained by the crane but had risen to his knees. His body was limp, his senses numb, and only his eyes seemed at all alive as he watched the scene before him. Flame’s fight for his life was unreal and the fury of it didn’t wholly penetrate the boy’s dazed mind for a few seconds. But when it did, and he became aware of the sinking hindquarters, the terrible, pounding forelegs of the stallion, fear passed from him to be replaced by a frenzy such as he’d never felt before.

Steve moved quickly, wildly about the pit, not knowing what to do for the horse and wasting valuable time. Then he slipped on the steep grade descending to the rim of the pit, and brought himself to a stop by falling to the ground and digging his heels and hands into the loose dirt. His own narrow escape from the pit drove the frenzy out of his mind and he was able to think clearly.