The horsemen divided into groups. One group sped away southwest at an angle, while another, going straight west, spread out on a long line to prevent the herd from going back to the river.
It was a close race. Every animal, pursuing or pursued, groaned in the terrible exertion of it. The younger and the stronger of the herd led the race, with Queen’s magnificent head in front. Behind the group of fastest runners came the mothers with their colts, and the old work-worn horses brought up the rear. Though spurs dug unmercifully into wet, throbbing sides, staining them with small red spots, the forepart of the herd, unencumbered by riders, won the end of the wall and broke away to the west in safety. Not until the wall point was almost out of sight did they stop to look back and when Queen finally felt it safe to do so and swung round a knoll, she saw no sign of her pursuers; but the far greater portion of the herd was gone with them.
About a mile southwest of where they were, they knew of a slough. It was down in a deep hollow and though they would rather have remained on the hills where they could more easily spy any one coming after them, they were very thirsty and trotted away for water. At the rim of the hollow some of them stopped to look about before going down, others broke down on a run.
Queen drank very little. She was worried and very nervous. While most of the horses walked into the pond, looking for deeper and clearer water, she took a few hasty sips of the warm, muddy stuff on the edge and then ran up the slope to take another look. There seemed to be nothing untoward on the plains, but to make sure she remained there a while and grazed.
She had not been grazing more than a few minutes when she was startled by a frantic splashing in the pond. She looked down in time to see White-black whose forelegs had sunk into a mud-hole, attempt to turn round. Half a dozen of the others began to struggle just as frantically. Some of them managed to reach hard ground, but White-black and two others seemed to sink deeper the harder they struggled.
At first all this violent effort to get out made her think that some awful danger had suddenly arisen in the centre of the pond, but the light grey mud on the flanks of those who did get out, apprised her of the fact that they had struck an alkali mud-hole. She had had her experience with alkali mud-holes before. They had been in the habit of drinking at the other end of the slough and had come to this end now only because the other end was somewhat nearer to the territory from which they had just escaped.