Instead, they had lived and bred and the band had survived. The horses the Spaniards had forsaken in this valley were of the purest blood and the finest obtainable; they had passed on their speed, stamina and beauty to their offspring. And Blue Valley with its good grass and water and protective walls had fostered these horses until today there was no finer band in all the world.

Steve touched Flame on the neck, stroking him gently. No one knows what Pitch and I have found, he mused. Not even Mother and Dad know or suspect anything out of the ordinary. They like Pitch; he’s an old friend of the family. They were glad I wanted to visit him on Antago last year, glad that I wanted to come back again this summer. Mother especially. For when Dad had proposed the long automobile trip for their vacation this summer, she had said, “You and I can do that, Paul. Let Steve visit Pitch again. Let him travel outside the country while he can; there’ll be time enough for him to take automobile trips with us.”

Steve smiled to himself as he thought of his mother’s words. What Mom really had meant was that she was glad he’d be with Pitch. She had great respect for Pitch’s intelligence and she thought it would do Steve good to be with him. She thought of Pitch as a scholar, an historian. She knew of his interest in archaeology and that he and Steve were doing some digging on an uninhabited island twenty miles northeast of Antago. Yes, that was what had brought them to the spit of Azul Island. And they had found more than they’d bargained for, much more than they’d ever dreamed of finding. But no one else knew.

Flame moved uneasily beneath him. The stallion wanted to be off with his band, and Steve noticed that it was becoming dark fast. He’d better be getting back to Pitch. He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask him. Touching Flame, he cantered across the valley to the trail which went up to the ledge; there he dismounted and, giving the stallion a light slap on his haunches, watched while Flame returned to his band.

He started up the trail, thinking of all the wonderful days to come, over two months, which he’d be able to spend with Flame and the band in their lost world.

PITCH’S MAP
2

The climb to the ledge was steep but not hard, and within a few minutes Steve had reached the campsite. But Phil Pitcher didn’t look up from his writing.

“You’ll go blind trying to work in the dark, Pitch.”

The man raised his head in a quick, startled way. “Oh, it’s you, Steve,” he said, putting down his pen.

“Not expecting anyone else, were you?” Steve asked, smiling.

“No. No, of course not. It was just that I was so absorbed.” Pitch paused to remove his glasses and rub his eyes, then he too smiled. “You’re right. It is almost dark. I’ll just put these papers away.”

Steve turned on the Coleman gasoline lantern, and his eyes blinked in its bright yellow light. He watched Pitch pick up the pages of the work he had done that day and place them carefully in his leather briefcase before putting it just within the cave’s entrance.