beard was smoking as Juan pressed against him to break the fire from his face.
Across the top the fire was farther down the slope. Here the air was clearer, although little brands were setting the brown vegetation that not long ago had been a mass of yellow bloom. Now it was to bloom in a more ardent hue, and sing with a sharp piping as the red surge laid it low in a breath.
Juan's horse came galloping back from its frantic seeking to the westward, its hide singed bare in spots, its saddle leather smoking, the stirrups thrashing its sides in wild spurring on this desperate race.
The mad creature wheeled as it faced the turmoil of fire from the burning flowers, to rush to the northern slope, where it paused, its forelegs thrust out stiffly to check its plunge over the rim. Juan made another vain effort to catch the beast, which burst away at his approach. Back and forth in the short clear space of the mountain ridge the wild thing galloped, rushing in eager seeking to the north slope again. A moment it scrambled there, forefeet over the edge, then plunged out of sight.
Had it found a way down, a desperate, perilous way? Juan hurried to the spot to see. The horse was rolling down the steep, crashing through brushwood, dashing over sharp ledges, trailing a frightful way that living man could not follow. On again, the horse that carried Don Geronimo humping its back as if it faced a wintry storm, its nose close to the ground, shrinking as near Juan as it could press, companion indeed of his miserable situation.
