the winter was a hard one. the skies were persistently and monotonously dull. a few moments of sunshine were invariably followed by days of howling winds and leaden skies. blizzard succeeded blizzard and the hollows filled so full of snow that it became dangerous for colts to wander off alone and they clung to their mothers’ sides.
during the short periods of daylight, the horses, the mares, and the colts broke up into groups and wandered away as far as the deeps allowed or hunger urged; but each night they congregated in the same corner of the valley. this nightly congregating kept the snow in one big spot firmly trodden to the ground and raised two walls with the rest of it, in the lee of which they obtained the comforts of an airy barn.
many a night when the shrieking wind overhead poured shower after shower of dry snow over them, covering them as with a blanket, little queen, lying close to the black colt and his white mother, indulged in a happy gratefulness for the comforts she experienced. where man thinks and knows, animals feel. experience had taught her in sensations and emotions, which she had not forgotten, what discomfort and disagreeableness were. the change in conditions which she now experienced brought into her mind sensations of a gratefulness which expressed itself in an ardent love for the colt and the white mare, a love which slowly overflowed toward and encompassed all the horses of the herd.
the nights were very long. the sun rose and set so far to the south and the arc it made in its daily course was so small that a drink or two of her share of the black colt’s milk and the procuring of a single meal on the deep, hidden grass, spent the day. when the shadows of one night, driven out by the dawn, came back so soon in the next night and there was nothing to do but sleep, sleeping became tiresome, and the necessary shifting from side to side kept the mind awake and active. impressions made and forgotten rekindled like embers in the windblown ashes of a fire. these impressions, varied as they were, and so largely without order of time or place, were nevertheless as useful to her as experience is useful to us. it was out of this experience that she built the individuality of her character, and only those who are totally ignorant of animalkind can deny that they have character and individuality.
often the phantom form of the old buckskin mare came to haunt the dreams of little queen and always on the following day she pawed the snow less energetically and gazed wistfully away over the endless prairie snows, puzzled over the incongruity of her mother’s coming in the dark hours and never by daylight when she could enjoy her most.
she was comfortable and happy in her second fosterage and thrived well upon it; yet these persistent dreams of her nights haunted her wakeful days and in time left on her beautiful head marks of sorrow, vague and intangible, but unmistakably there, adding a charm to that head that it never lost.
then the days began lengthening. the sun climbed higher in the sky and broke through the spell of winter’s clouds with a smiling kindness that stirred every cell in queen’s body. spring came upon the stern winter as a rosy dawn breaks upon an unpleasant night. the white-packed hollows began smiling to cloudless skies with a silent and radiating wetness and the snows shrank away, exposing brown spots. the earth began to emit intoxicating odours of growth and the valleys filled with cool, trembling water. like living things born in the night these rippling pools appeared everywhere.
birds came daily in greater numbers from the south and their songs augmented the nameless urge that the south winds bore and filled the desolate wilds with friendliness and goodwill. before the snows had completely disappeared, a layer of thick green grass began carpeting the earth and myriads of delicate crocuses studded the green with colour-illumined stars.
long as the days were becoming, the colts found them all too short for the full expression of the joy that spring was giving them. nights came altogether too soon and the vapoury light of early dawn revealed them already romping over the plains, seeking to rid their joints of the sleepy feeling that the long winter had given them. in wide circles they ran, plunging through sloughs, jumping, kicking at the air, pretending to bite each other in violent anger, stopping only when hunger demanded it.
changes met them wherever they looked. the earth itself and all life upon it seemed to have become an endless play of the forces of change. just as each day was in itself a succession of changes, white light merging into the tinted colours of evening, fading out in night and breaking again into the colours and the light of a new day, so one day was different from another and they felt themselves each day changing from what they had been the day before.
queen was only vaguely conscious of these changes in herself, and in her companions, but one change was clearest of all. most easily perceptible of all, this change, in a way, represented them all. it was the change which she one day realised was taking place in the black colt. something was very apparently happening to him. his black hair fell rapidly, as she had realised her own hair was falling; but the black colt was steadily growing less black, turning white as night turns to day. when he was white enough to startle her, she realised that henceforth he was to be white as his mother was. so distracting was this change, however, that she sometimes looked at him with the feeling that he was another colt, and in those rare moments she experienced a peculiar depressive emotion, like the feeling she had experienced when she was standing before her dead mother, looking confusedly down upon her. yet she knew that it was he. there were fortunately other characteristics that remained unchanged. in time, of course, she got quite used to the change in his appearance; but she never forgot that he had been black. the image of him, the picture that rose in her mind when she thought of him and when he was not immediately before her, was a changeable image which was black one moment and white the next.
if queen had been in the habit of applying to every image in her mind some name, she would have called him, “white-black.” possibly she might have added the word or the idea, “big,” for he was much bigger than he had been; but, since that quality applied to all the colts, she would probably have left that off.
by the varying degrees of this quality in the many colts, as well as by the many other qualities she learned belonged to all or to each of them, queen knew one from the other. all through the long winter her companionship had been restricted to the black colt and his mother, but now, the common desires of youth brought the colts together and led them in time to abandon the companionship of the mares and the adult horses. some of them went back every day to their mothers for milk, but they all played by themselves and even at night they rested in a group together, away from their mothers. though their mothers had their own social life and activities to occupy them and did not mind the daily absence of their overgrown foals, their maternal instincts, their anxiety over their erstwhile babies, was still very great. in spite of this division of interests, in spite of this habitual grouping, they lived near each other and at the first sound or sign of danger, they gathered and fled in concert.
the old desire for her mother, the longing, the urge to go forth and to seek, had lost what little definiteness it had had and had turned into an impulse to go, which spasmodically welled up in queen and sent her loping over the plains without purpose. always as soon as he saw her start away, white-black loped after her and always the rest of the colts followed. sometimes the older horses and mares, mistaking the escapade for a sign of danger, would lope after them.
first happening occasionally, this game began to take place daily and even several times a day. just as the colts and other horses got into the habit of following her, queen acquired the habitual desire to be followed.
it happened one morning that the big brown colt led the race. jealousy seized at the heart and mind of queen and she exerted herself to the very end of her strength to get ahead of him, as if her life depended upon doing so. she puffed and snorted and pumped away with her thin long legs, but could not even get abreast of him. behind her she could hear the milder snorting of white-black. suddenly she veered to the left. she was exhausted and intended getting out of the way of the herd; but she felt white-black veering with her and knew that the others were following him.
quickly she seized the opportunity. she exerted herself with renewed hope and sped on harder than ever and soon the brown colt found himself alone. to the left was the whole herd racing madly after queen, in an ecstasy of motion. he turned and followed them, trying hard to catch up, but realising that he had lost. on the other hand queen had discovered a trick whereby the newly acquired leadership could be kept, and she meant to keep it.
their food grew in abundance wherever they turned. the grass was rich and juicy; wild plants, sweet and delightful to the taste, grew abundantly on the hillsides; and water, cool and refreshing, trembled in every hollow.
plenty to eat and a great deal of exercise to sharpen the appetite filled out all the depressions in queen’s body and because she was too active to be fat, she became delightfully plump. her hair now shorter was sleek and its gloss flashed in the sunlight. her mane was luxuriantly thick and wavy. part of it came down between her ears and over the white spot on her forehead, down to her eyes, giving her magnificent head, with the imprint of sadness upon it, a touch of queenliness that few queens possess.
we all love beauty without being able to say just what it is. the colts felt a something about her which aroused in them a sort of homage, spontaneous and unquestioned. white-black, strong and good-natured, kept the other colts at a safe distance; but they availed themselves of every chance to touch her, to graze where she was grazing or to run alongside of her. sometimes white-black resented the attention some big fellow offered and started a quarrel which resulted in his defeat. at such times he would assume the attitude of one who had been convinced of being wrong. after all he was yet too young to be serious in his love affairs and his affection for queen was due more to their having been reared together than to anything else.
queen loved them all, but she loved white-black most and every colt knew it. many a quarrel ended in his victory because of her attitude rather than his strength, but he did not know that. next to him queen favoured the white mare and next to her, the old sorrel work-horse. white-black understood her love for his mother; but he could not fathom her predilection for the old horse. for a long time, when the old sorrel out of pure reminiscent fondness approached queen, white-black would lose his temper, kick at the old horse and attempt to bite him; but where queen sometimes allowed the colts to fight it out between themselves, she invariably interfered in any attempt to wrangle with the sorrel by taking part in it on his side. in time, white-black learned to let him alone.
the lull of the summer began to creep into the long days, and mosquitoes and nose-flies in vast numbers came to blight the sweetness of the spring wilds. the mosquitoes, annoying as these bloody little pests were, were not half so bad as the nose-flies. the very sight of their long beaks and yellow backs would drive the colts frantic. grazing quietly, they would suddenly begin bobbing their heads up and down and then start away over the plains as if something frightful were after them.
this murderous pest always started an attack by buzzing around the nose like a bee, then landing on the breast it would creep up the neck till it reached the muzzle, where it would quietly settle down. puncturing a hole in the tender nose, it would insert its beak and drink freely and unshakeably, then fly away leaving a hurt that burned for hours. when they first appeared, the older horses, knowing them, would keep their noses in the grass as they grazed, or they would, when through grazing, gather in groups and rest their chins firmly upon each other’s backs, thus giving the pest no chance to creep up. in time the colts learned to protect themselves in the same way.
when sultry spells were suddenly broken by gusts of unbridled winds, which would carry the pests away, the colts would give themselves over to eating and drinking and merrymaking.
there came a sultry spell in the early days of summer. every chin was resting upon some friend’s back. tails switched ceaselessly and feet stamped the ground with drowsy rhythm. the air was still. not a blade of grass moved. the silence was broken only by the nauseous singing of mosquitoes and the monotonous droning of nose-flies.
suddenly there came upon the still, warm air the tattoo of distant hoof-beats. two horsemen, coming up over a hill to the south, were just in the act of separating with the obvious intention of coming together on the other side of them, when queen discovered them. instantly the group broke up, and colts and mares and horses mixed in a noisy stampede.
when the older horses wearied of the race, they stopped to look back anxiously at the pursuing riders; but queen, in whom the fear of man, dormant all winter, had now awakened with great intensity, tore away to the north, snorting as she went, her tail at an angle behind her, loping as fast as she could despite the heat and the insects.
she came breathlessly to the summit of a rather high hill and turned to look back. some of the colts and some of the faster adults were there with her, but the white mare and the old sorrel were not there. half a mile behind them she could see the riders, now facing south; and beyond them she saw the part of the herd which they had captured.
white-black was standing beside queen when he suddenly discovered the loss of his mother. neighing loudly and distractedly, he started down the hill after the men. queen was afraid to go with him, yet she did not want to let him go alone. she followed him, calling to him as she went; but white-black persisted. when they got within a quarter of a mile of the men, they saw one of them turn off to the side and then turn backward. white-black then realised the danger of continuing after them. judging by horses he had known, horses reared in barnyards, the man thought that it would be a simple matter to get the rest of them, now that he had captured some of them; but he was mistaken.
it was anything but a simple matter. queen stopped so short that one of the colts, following along behind, hurt himself, running into her. with a stamp of her strong front leg, she turned north and once more led the race for freedom.
all afternoon they ran as fast as their strength would allow. the smell of man hung in the air before queen’s nose, poisoning her blood with hate of him. she had little time to question, yet her whole soul, confused by fear and the urgent need to make distance, sought the why of this two-legged creature, always breaking in upon their peace and always hurting them.
at last they began to feel that no one was pursuing them and stopped to investigate. there was not the faintest glimpse of anything on hill or horizon and in the air there was no trace of man. in the evening they fed about a slough and at night they slept on the north side of it with their heads turned toward the south.
early next morning white-black was seized again by an intense longing for his mother and braving the terrors of captivity, he started again in search of her. they were trotting and walking along leisurely, searching the spaces constantly when they came upon a hill from where they spied a number of horses galloping toward them. they got frightened and turned back north, but soon stopped again to ascertain who it was that was coming, and so these horses gained upon them.
they proved to be three of the colts and a big mare who had somehow broken free from the cunning little men. they were so excited that they would not stop to sniff noses. while they passed through the group they trotted, but as soon as they were on the other side they broke away in a gallop. queen and white-black and all the rest caught the contagion of their fear, abandoned their search for those who were lost to them and ran with the feeling that danger of captivity had become imminent once more. and for almost a week they continued their desultory flight.
when the fear of the little men creatures had lost some of its intensity, white-black and queen made several attempts to find the white mare. her form seemed to flash across the prairies like patches of sunlight, seen only at the vanishing moment. often they called loud and long trying in vain to pierce the unknown and waiting hopelessly for a reply.
but this, too, was the inevitable, and railing and fretting was no solution. in time the hunger for his mother shrank back into the depths of white-black’s limited soul and the full ardour of his love fell to the lot of queen. and queen felt in the touch and the presence of white-black a compensation for the aches in her soul, which, like wounds, had healed, but had left their scars for life.