“I too imagined I heard a soft voice, but undoubtedly it was the band outside,” continued the Canadian. “Hark—there it is again!”
All listened. Certainly some one spoke in a soft, effeminate voice, though so faintly that it was impossible to distinguish the words.
All listened as though petrified, so intense was the interest—Pedro alive with hope for his gold, and the others, more especially Mr. Wheeler, for his lost child. But there was no repetition of the voice, and after listening for some time they returned to the entrance gloomily.
A sudden movement took place among the Apaches. Their mustangs were grassing out on the plain some five hundred yards distant, being some half a mile from the sorrel mustang which avoided them. Starting suddenly from the wagon-wheels they darted away rapidly toward their steeds, keeping the wagons between them and the hillock, making it impossible for the whites to aim, even tolerably.
“Every hair of my sorrel head! my boot-heels! what in Jupiter do them fellows mean? they’re getting away from us like mad. Skunk after ’em, I reckon.”
Pedro’s face lightened as he said, “There is some one approaching, possibly the party. Certainly it is some one hostile to them, or—”
He stopped short as a thought flashed over him. Could it be possible they had seen the apparition—that he had appeared to them? no—the idea was rejected as soon as conceived. Not knowing the Trailer, at least that he had been killed once, they would have promptly shot at him, which they had not done. No—it was something else.
It was not a ruse to draw them from their concealment, as every one of the six savages was now scampering hastily for their steeds. They had all retreated—every one; and confident of no harm, Pedro stepped boldly out into the daylight and the open plain.
Down in this country, twilights are brief, and even now the sun was winking over the horizon. Looking round, his gaze fell upon a small collection of objects, directly against the sun, a league or more distant.
“Horsemen—whites.”