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dignity. I suppose it was the way he had blinded Andoo that made him
think of leaping on the back of one of them. But though Eudena after a
time came out in the open too, and they did some unobtrusive stalking,
things stopped there.
Then one memorable day a new idea came to Ugh-lomi. The horse looks down
and level, but he does not look up. No animals look up--they have too
much common-sense. It was only that fantastic creature, man, could waste
his wits skyward. Ugh-lomi made no philosophical deductions, but he
perceived the thing was so. So he spent a weary day in a beech that
stood in the open, while Eudena stalked. Usually the horses went into
the shade in the heat of the afternoon, but that day the sky was
overcast, and they would not, in spite of Eudena's solicitude.
It was two days after that that Ugh-lomi had his desire. The day was
blazing hot, and the multiplying flies asserted themselves. The horses
stopped grazing before midday, and came into the shadow below him, and
stood in couples nose to tail, flapping.
The Master Horse, by virtue of his heels, came closest to the tree. And
suddenly there was a rustle and a creak, a thud.... Then a sharp
chipped flint bit him on the cheek. The Master Horse stumbled, came on
one knee, rose to his feet, and was off like the wind. The air was full
of the whirl of limbs, the prance of hoofs, and snorts of alarm.
Ugh-lomi was pitched a foot in the air, came down again, up again, his
stomach was hit violently, and then his knees got a grip of something
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