Free The Black Stallion Mystery by Walter Farley Page A

protection at all from the sheer precipices that dropped thousands of feet on either side. And always above them rose the bare peaks, so lonely, awesome and terrible. Without the sun Alec and Henry would have lost all sense of direction for sometimes they faced south, then north and east and west with the twisting of the road.
    “It’s not what you’d call a bridle path,” Henry grunted.
    The road had become more shale than dirt and only occasionally would they find a track. But they didn’t need prints as evidence of the road’s use. They had only to look at the banks on the sides, which had been put there to prevent washes during heavy rains. Someone was very much interested in keeping this road open.
    The sun grew brighter and hotter and the sweat was caked on the Black’s side. Bright-brown water laced the road ruts but none of the travelers stopped to drink it.
    Henry said, “This hard going will stiffen him up.”
    “To say nothing of what it’s going to do to us,” Alec answered, trying to laugh despite his weariness.
    “Why don’t you ride? Your weight won’t bother him much.”
    Alec shook his head. “When you walk, I walk. It would be different if we could take turns riding him.”
    Henry snorted. “I wouldn’t put a leg up on him forall the mountain climbs in the world! How long do you think I’d last? He won’t tolerate me the way he does you, you know.”
    Alec didn’t answer.
    “It can’t be much farther,” Henry said, slipping on a loose stone.
    Another hour passed and their doubts and fears grew stronger as the sky clouded and the land became more desolate. The wind, too, came up again, twisting its way through the jagged rock to meet them. It was icy cold. They no longer talked to each other but bent into the gale and listened, keeping their mouths tightly closed because of the flying grit. In the great distances they thought they heard the scream of a stallion … or was it the wind? The Black did not answer it but continued on his way with no change in pace or gait. Only once did he dance sideways and that was because he smelled a fast-flowing stream.
    They stopped then, but when they went on again there seemed to be no escape from the sharp grains of gravel and dirt which tore at their faces. They became more and more desperate in seeking relief. Their eyes burned and their lips were cracked and swollen and cold. Sometime later they reached another plateau where the ground was soft and pock-marked with the prints of many horses. But their only interest was that here the wind swept over grass rather than shale and dirt.
    They made a rough camp under some high rocks that jutted out from the western wall. There was no escaping the icy blasts but the wind was clear and free of grit. Alec tethered the Black and with Henry gathered all the wood they could find and started a fire. Warmingthemselves, too cold and tired to talk, they stood beside the wind-driven flames in sober silence. Not until the fire scorched their faces and clothes did they move away, and then only a step.
    Alec said, “When the wind dies down we’ll go on.”
    Henry didn’t answer. His face was grim and gray beneath the grizzled stubble of his beard. He looked past the fire to the great tableland above them, guessing that it must be there that their journey would end.
If the wind would only stop.… Why must they endure this? What had they done to González to be left alone? Why? Why?
    Coming down from the great heights, the wind grew in intensity with the passing of the long afternoon hours, giving them no respite, no chance to go on, shattering the gloom of the fast approaching night.
    From the saddlebag Alec took the dried meat and gave half of it to Henry. They warmed it on the ends of long sticks, jealously guarding it from the golden flames. When they had finished, Henry said, “If I should fall asleep standing up, pull me out of the fire.”
    Alec watched the Black and the whirling sky. It seemed the whole