They found foothold on ridges a couple of inches deep, hardly
visible to the eye from above. Plunging down a straight drop without a
sign of a ledge for fifty feet below them, they broke the force of the
fall and slowed themselves constantly by striking their hoofs from side
to side against the face of the cliff. And so they landed, with bunched
feet, on the first broad terrace below and again bounced over the ledge
and so out of sight.
He dined on wild mutton that evening. In the morning he hunted along the
edge of the cliffs until he came to a difficult route down to the valley.
An ordinary horse would never have made it, but El Sangre was in his
glory. If he had not the agility of the mountain sheep, he was well-nigh
as level-headed in the face of tremendous heights. He knew how to pitch
ten feet down to a terrace and strike on his bunched hoofs so that the
force of the fall would not break his legs or unseat his rider. Again he
understood how to drive in the toes of his hoofs and go up safely through
loose gravel where most horses, even mustangs, would have skidded to the
bottom of the slope.
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