Read Online The Black Stallion Revolts by Walter Farley - Free Book Online
Authors: Walter Farley
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finally it was still, he set out again, traveling as before to the south.
Back over the many miles the black stallion had come during the long night and part of a day, and near the clearing where the crippled plane lay, the search for Alec Ramsay and his horse was in progress. Already two local planes were flying low, winging their way over knife-edged ridges whose slopes and peaksloomed large in the windshields. The pilots had flown searches before above these desolate mountain ranges. They crisscrossed diligently, their eyes leaving the ground below only long enough to enable them to rudder hard and away from the menacing shoulder peaks.
Yet this time the pilots were not looking for the bright winking of metal from a crashed plane, nor for a swath cut among the treetops. No, this time it was even more difficult, for this country could swallow up a boy and a horse without a sign, a trace.
One pilot slanted down into the deep canyons. Only here, away from sheltered trees, did he have a chance of seeing them. Yet even this could not be called open country. There were too many crags and clefts, too many black gullies and canyons. His great hope was that the boy would see him, that he would be given some signal that they were there, and waiting to be found.
He told himself that this was not a futile search, that he or one of the many other pilots who would join the search within a few hours would certainly find the boy and horse. They must be somewhere below, their eyes on the sky, looking for him. If only they would give him some sign to tell him where they were!
He kept to the canyon country, leaving the great wooded mountainside to the other plane. He twisted and turned with the steep walls, kicking his plane hard away from them only to be confronted by the rising, forbidding mountains that hemmed in these canyons. For hours he climbed and dropped, and the afternoon slipped away as an increasing sense of futility mounted within him.
Finally he rose again and held his plane at cruising speed. He began circling, and noticed that the other plane was now doing the same. They had given up baring their wings and lives to the sides of the mountains. Now they would cruise and watch for a sign, a signal from below that would tell them where to go.
Certainly if the boy was alive he must see them searching for him.
And if he wasn’t …
The thought only added to the pilot’s weariness. The pattern then, he knew, would be the familiar one of long searches on foot rather than from the sky. Long days and weeks of searching, perhaps without finding a trail, a clue, anything at all in this vast wilderness. But the ground search, although heartbreaking and futile, would be necessary because of relatives left behind, and the newspapers that demanded it. If this were settled country it would be different. There’d be some hope then. But it wasn’t settled. In every direction it was an unexplored wilderness, feared and avoided by hunters and trappers,
by all
.
The pilot thought of the wild animals who stalked these ranges, the mountain lions and bears, the wolf packs and coyotes. Any of these could have attacked and killed the horse during the night. And if the horse had gone down what chance had the boy?
These thoughts drove him down to the treetops again, and he brushed his wings against them until the sunlight disappeared behind the highest of the western ranges. For a brief period he carried on his relentless search in the golden afterglow of the sun shedding its light from behind the peaks. Finally this light went, andit became dark. He banked his plane for home. Other planes would join the search tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow, they would find them … or even tonight.
While the planes had been searching from the sky, two woodsmen followed the Black’s trail from the crippled plane. By sunset they came to the rocky country and there they stopped to kneel on the ground, looking at the large, almost oval
Back over the many miles the black stallion had come during the long night and part of a day, and near the clearing where the crippled plane lay, the search for Alec Ramsay and his horse was in progress. Already two local planes were flying low, winging their way over knife-edged ridges whose slopes and peaksloomed large in the windshields. The pilots had flown searches before above these desolate mountain ranges. They crisscrossed diligently, their eyes leaving the ground below only long enough to enable them to rudder hard and away from the menacing shoulder peaks.
Yet this time the pilots were not looking for the bright winking of metal from a crashed plane, nor for a swath cut among the treetops. No, this time it was even more difficult, for this country could swallow up a boy and a horse without a sign, a trace.
One pilot slanted down into the deep canyons. Only here, away from sheltered trees, did he have a chance of seeing them. Yet even this could not be called open country. There were too many crags and clefts, too many black gullies and canyons. His great hope was that the boy would see him, that he would be given some signal that they were there, and waiting to be found.
He told himself that this was not a futile search, that he or one of the many other pilots who would join the search within a few hours would certainly find the boy and horse. They must be somewhere below, their eyes on the sky, looking for him. If only they would give him some sign to tell him where they were!
He kept to the canyon country, leaving the great wooded mountainside to the other plane. He twisted and turned with the steep walls, kicking his plane hard away from them only to be confronted by the rising, forbidding mountains that hemmed in these canyons. For hours he climbed and dropped, and the afternoon slipped away as an increasing sense of futility mounted within him.
Finally he rose again and held his plane at cruising speed. He began circling, and noticed that the other plane was now doing the same. They had given up baring their wings and lives to the sides of the mountains. Now they would cruise and watch for a sign, a signal from below that would tell them where to go.
Certainly if the boy was alive he must see them searching for him.
And if he wasn’t …
The thought only added to the pilot’s weariness. The pattern then, he knew, would be the familiar one of long searches on foot rather than from the sky. Long days and weeks of searching, perhaps without finding a trail, a clue, anything at all in this vast wilderness. But the ground search, although heartbreaking and futile, would be necessary because of relatives left behind, and the newspapers that demanded it. If this were settled country it would be different. There’d be some hope then. But it wasn’t settled. In every direction it was an unexplored wilderness, feared and avoided by hunters and trappers,
by all
.
The pilot thought of the wild animals who stalked these ranges, the mountain lions and bears, the wolf packs and coyotes. Any of these could have attacked and killed the horse during the night. And if the horse had gone down what chance had the boy?
These thoughts drove him down to the treetops again, and he brushed his wings against them until the sunlight disappeared behind the highest of the western ranges. For a brief period he carried on his relentless search in the golden afterglow of the sun shedding its light from behind the peaks. Finally this light went, andit became dark. He banked his plane for home. Other planes would join the search tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow, they would find them … or even tonight.
While the planes had been searching from the sky, two woodsmen followed the Black’s trail from the crippled plane. By sunset they came to the rocky country and there they stopped to kneel on the ground, looking at the large, almost oval
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