"Vot it is?" he was saying over and over to himself. "Vot it is? Dot is not Billy Follansbee. Dot man vould make dree times of Follansbee, nit?"
Cold fear was slowly stealing over Carl, and he wanted in his heart to turn and ride the other way.
But something seemed to draw him forward, and, try as he would, he could not bring himself to turn back.
The man on the black horse could not be a member of the Long Tom force, for Carl knew every one of them well, as a fellow will who has camped with them for months on a cattle drive.
Now Carl was near enough to see the man's face, and he peered eagerly forward to get a glimpse of it.
Then his heart sank lower yet, for the man's face was as white as the snow beyond. There were no features; neither nose, nor mouth, nor eyebrows, only a pair of black eyes gleamed out of that dead-white face.
Carl clutched at the horn of his saddle to keep from falling, he was so frightened.
"Vot it is?" he kept repeating to himself.
His pony stopped of its own volition directly in front of this black apparition, and Carl swayed in his saddle and would have fallen out of it had he not clung to it with the unconscious strength of despair.
"Iss dot you, Follansbee?" asked Carl, in a weak, thin voice, well knowing that it was not his line partner, but trying to break the spell of fear that held him.