A MYSTERIOUS SHOT.
After the Canadian had trembled, shuddered and brooded awhile without being alarmed by a second visitation, he began to look into the why and the wherefore of it. To follow his vague and erratic mind-wanderings would be a dull task, as he was too terrified and confused to shape his thoughts into any discernible matter.
An hour perhaps passed and it was now the early morning. In the cave the torch cast its flickering light over a dull, gloomy scene. Pedro and Mr. Wheeler lay motionless in a semi-stupor; Duncan muttered disjointedly in his sleep, bewailing and cursing his hard lot; the horse of the Mexican stood in his giant proportions quietly in a corner; and only the Canadian was at all conscious of passing sounds and events. These had not come—were yet to arrive; and arrive they did in no very merry manner.
All had been quiet, Duncan in his heavy sleep forgetting to snore, when the mustang, Dimple, nickered loudly; at the same moment Pedro turned uneasily and muttered:
“The Trailer—my precious, yellow gold.”
The Canadian started, and springing to his feet glanced round in the darkness as though momentarily expecting a second visitation of the man in the towering hat; but all was quiet, the torch flickered weirdly, and he again sat near the entrance.
“What does he mean?” he soliloquized.
“The Trailer—that means that horrible ghost. And yellow gold—what does that mean? He has seen the specter—that I am satisfied of; it accounts for his strange alarm and apathy; but the gold, the gold—what gold does he mean?”
Another shrill nicker from Dimple outside; in his abstraction he noted it not but went on with his soliloquy.
“I have hunted the moose on Moosehead Lake, and on the head-waters of the Penobscot; I’ve lumbered on the Kennebec and Androscoggin; I’ve fished in the Thousand Isles; I’ve hunted the bear in the Missouri Ozarks; but of all the ghastly moons that ever shone, this one to-night is the ghastliest. The very moon in the Land of Silence is different from other moons—or the same moon at other places. There it is white; here it is yellow, red, and sometimes even blood-red, like a ruby. What a quiet, ghastly place—this vast yellow wilderness; how still the air always is; how sultry and hazy the days and dreamy the nights; how— Halloa!”