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The wild stallion was a great buckskin with dark legs, not as large as the blue stallion. The two sniffed noses and thereafter politely ignored each other.   The Hinny was ignored from the start; she was not quite their kind, being half-breed.
    The lad dismounted, and I followed. It had been a long, fast ride, but both of us were excellent riders, and both our steeds were easy to use. They grazed, for horses are ever hungry. We passed among the small herd—and strange it was to be around these wild horses, who never ordinarily tolerated the nearness of man. I was in young delight. They were mostly fine, healthy mares, with a few foals, but one among them ailed. The blue lad went to this one, a spindly colt, and ran his hands over the animal’s body, and the dam watched without interference while I stood amazed.  
    “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, for I could not determine the malady. I, who thought I knew horses.  
    “Spirit worms,” the lad responded absently. “A magical infestation, common in this region.” Then he said to the colt in a singsong lilt: “Comest thou to me, the worms will flee.” It was nonsense verse, a joke—yet suddenly the colt perked up, took a step toward the lad, and there was a ripple in the air as invisible yet ugly somethings wriggled away. Instantly the colt seemed healthier, and his dam nickered gratefully. I realized that a little encouragement was all the colt had needed; he was not really sick, merely undernourished.
    The blue lad approached the herd stallion and said: “We search for a lost foal, that went astray yesterday. Hast thou seen it, or dost thou know aught of it?” The stallion glanced at me as though requiring news from me, and I said: “It is a filly, only a month old, pure white and lovely and helpless. I call her Snowflake.” The stallion snorted.
    “He says he has not seen the foal,” the blue lad said.   “But he knows of one who collects white foals, and found one in this area, and that is the Snow Horse.”
    “Where is this Snow Horse?” I asked.
    “He knows not, for the Snow Horse ranges far and associates not with ordinary equines. Only Peg can tell where he might be now.”
    “Peg?” I asked, perplexed.
    “I will take thee to her.”
    We remounted our steeds and were off again like the wind. We ranged south across plains and woods, fording streams and surmounting hills as if they were nothing. We passed a young unicorn stallion grazing; he had pretty green and orange stripes, and his hooves were ebony, and his horn spiraled pearl. He started up, approaching us, and I grew nervous, for that the unicorn is to the horse as the tiger is to the housecat. But he merely ran beside us, and then drew ahead, racing us. He wanted to play.   The blue lad smiled, and leaned forward, and the blue stallion leaped ahead as though he had been merely idling before, and the Hinny set back her ears and launched herself after him. Oh, these fine animals loved a race! Now the ground shot behind in a green blur, and trees passed like arrows, and I clung to the Hinny’s quicksilver mane for fear I would fall, though her gait remained wonderfully smooth. We passed the unicorn.
    Now the unicorn lengthened his stride and made great leaps, passing right over bushes and rocks while we had to go around them. He recovered the lead, flinging his tail up in a mirthful salute. But again the blue stallion bore down, and the Hinny’s body became like a hawk flying through a gale, and we pounded out a pace that passed the homed stallion again. Never had I traveled at such velocity! A third time the unicorn accelerated, and now his body was shimmering with heat, and fire blasted from his nostrils, and sparks cast up from his hooves, and slowly he moved ahead of us once more. This time we could not match him, for that our steeds carried burdens and were merely physical equines, not magical. Yet had we given that unicorn a good race, and made him heat before he bested us. Very