The cattle had not all arrived at their summer pastures from the coves and the “flat woods.” To-day young Bylor, whose father was a farmer on the slopes below, had driven up a “bunch” of cows, and while he was standing quite alone at some distance from the cabin, engaged in readjusting a brass tag which had been lost from the horn of one of the animals, he heard the sound of an approach, and glanced about him in the fleecy white nullity that had taken the place of the erased world. He did not recognize in the dim figure of the horseman the terrible ghostly herder, the steed rearing and plunging, the erect figure looming gigantic, merging with no distinct outlines into the enveloping uncertainty of the mist. He stood stolidly gazing for a moment; then he hailed it.
“Howdy, stranger!” he cried.
The figure paused; the horse fell upon his haunches and pawed the air with his forefeet, while the rider leaned forward, beckoning slowly as Bylor approached. What monition induced him to pause he could hardly have said. The significance of the insistently beckoning apparition flashed upon him in the moment. He turned precipitately, stumbling over the roots of a tree and falling prone upon the ground; then recovering himself, he ran at full speed through the blinding fog toward the cabin. He swore afterward that he heard behind him the tramp of a horse’s hoofs and a voice laughing mockingly.
At the herders’ cabin he found Ben Doaks and his partner from Piomingo Bald, pallid and shaken, among the other herders who had gathered there, all panic-stricken, and each arguing to shift to his partner the responsibility of the care of the cattle, that he might leave the weird, haunted summits, and find rest and peace and reassuring human comradeship in the prosaic depths of the cove.
“From what I hev hearn tell ’bout that thar herder,” said Doaks, with his facile credulity, “none o’ we-uns air a-goin’ ter hev sense enough ter keer fur cattle ’n’ nuthin’ else fur a year an’ a day. Leastwise that hev been the ’speriunce o’ other folks ez hev viewed the harnt.”
He laid on another stick of wood, for the day was chill, and the great fire crackled and sparkled, and the red and yellow flames darted up the rude and tremulous chimney, and gave the one bright element of illuminated color to the dark interior. The bearded men grouped about the fire were seated one upon a keg of salt, three on a log, and Ben Doaks had dropped on a saddle flung down upon the hearth. The door was closed; once it came unbuttoned, and every face turned quickly to scan the shivering mists, pallid and cold and opaque, crowding to the entrance, to be shut out summarily into the vast vagueness of the outer world.
“I dunno ez I feel ennywise lackin’,” observed another, after a long introspective pause. He rubbed his hand meditatively over his beard. “I never ’lowed ez I war special gifted, but I ain’t a spang fool yit.”
“I reckon we hain’t hed time ter ’speriunce it,” said Doaks, as he settled himself to wait for the dreaded doom, a little astonished, subacutely, to be conscious of no diminution of mental power.
“I seen him so close!” cried Bylor. “I wish ter goodness I hed shot at him!”
“Bullet would jes’ hev gone through him,” said Doaks, “’thout interruptin’ him none.”