From time to time he halted to study the lay of the land ahead.
It was bare, somber, ridgy desert, covered with dun-colored
greasewood and stunted prickly pear. Distant mountains hemmed
in the valley, raising black spurs above the round lomas and the
square-walled mesas.
This lonely horseman bestrode a steed of magnificent build,
perfectly white except for a dark bar of color running down the
noble head from ears to nose. Sweatcaked dust stained the long
flanks. The horse had been running. His mane and tail were laced
and knotted to keep their length out of reach of grasping cactus
and brush. Clumsy home-made leather shields covered the front
of his forelegs and ran up well to his wide breast. What otherwise
would have been muscular symmetry of limb was marred by many a
scar and many a lump. He was lean, gaunt, worn, a huge machine
of muscle and bone, beautiful only in head and mane, a weight-carrier,
a horse strong and fierce like the desert that had bred him.
The rider fitted the horse as he fitted the saddle. He was a young
man of exceedingly powerful physique, wide-shouldered, long-armed,
big-legged. His lean face, where it was not red, blistered and peeling,
was the hue of bronze. He had a dark eye, a falcon gaze, roving
and keen. His jaw was prominent and set, mastiff-like; his lips
were stern. It was youth with its softness not yet quite burned
and hardened away that kept the whole cast of his face from being
ruthless.
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