The creature's sudden panic struck Juan's horse like a contagion. Until that moment it had stood where Juan had dropped the reins, confident in the wisdom of its master, unshaken in the menace of the fiery storm from which, left to its own resources, it would have fled. Juan sprang to secure it to a shrub; it reared as he reached for the dangling reins, snorted a blast of terror, dashed way in thebrush. Juan ran after it, his reason dispersed almost as completely as the horse's by this sudden calamity. The roar of the fire drowned his voice; the horse was lost to sight in the swirl of driving smoke.
Don Geronimo appeared to be unconscious, lying nerveless as the dead with closed eyes and sagging head. Juan twisted the bridle reins around his hand and plunged off in the direction his own horse had gone, the frantic creature that carried Don Geronimo struggling to pass him and tear free. It required all his strength to hold the horse, which dashed through the thick brushwood dragging him after. A branch took his hat; he had neither time nor power to stop and recover it, but he was assured by the determination of the horse to go in that direction that a way to safety lay ahead.
This was a false hope, as proved in a moment when his own horse came running wildly back. Juan called to it, tried to throw himself in front of it and stop it. The mad creature swerved, and broke past him with a crash in the tangled brushwood, and was gone.
