On the day after Pedro left the Gila he arrived at the old robber hillock. As he rode up to it, he mechanically looked for a skeleton he expected to see there—the skeleton of the Trailer. To his surprise not a bone of it was there, where he left the body.
Could the Trailer have come to life? impossible—he was killed instantly. Pedro had shot him from behind, the ball entering his back and penetrating to his heart. No—it could not be possible.
But the skeleton—where was it? of course the body had been devoured by carnivorous animals—as a matter of course it had been; but animals never swallow the bones—they should be there still.
Pedro was perplexed and looked off over the plain, as if for an answer. He got none. Everywhere, in every direction, it was the same monotonous expanse—always yellow, dry and quiet, always spectral and forbidding; he was in the heart of the Land of Silence.
“The skeleton—where in the world can it be?” he muttered, glancing about. “Curse it, I begin to feel awkward and uneasy already. This is a cursed quiet place—this plain; and such a name as it has, too; just the place for spirits to roam about in. I am beginning to believe they have tampered with the Trailer’s bones—I do, indeed. Ha! what’s that?”
He had espied something white at a distance away—something which looked dry and bleached, like bones long exposed to the elements. He rode slowly toward it; it (or they) was a bunch of bones clustered together, as if thrown hastily in a pile.
He took them one by one in his hands and narrowly examined them. They were human, he could tell—might they not be the Trailer’s? They were much too small, he thought, still one is deceived ofttimes by appearances. The Trailer had been a large man—a giant; these bones were rather small.
Still he knew he had not seen them when here a year ago—they had not been there then. These bones were about a year old; that is, exposed to the elements. A year ago he had killed the Trailer, the last robber on the spot—the bones must be his.
“They are the Trailer’s—they must be,” he said, and idly kicking them, mounted and rode back to the hill or mound.
To describe this singular place would be a long task, so we will skim briefly over it. About forty feet long by twenty in hight, it was a mere shell—probably a hiding-place contrived centuries ago. It was entered in this manner by Pedro.