"Bail up, matey—or, by jingo, I'll put daylight into you!"
Obedient to the order the figure instantly pulled up.
The moon was bright enough now for us to see his face. And, though, as I've said before, I'm not a coward as a general rule, I can tell you that it made me feel fairly sick, so white and creepy-looking was it. Then he held up his hand as if in protest and started towards us.
This didn't suit Spicer, however, for he yelled,—
"Stand off! or by the living God I swear I'll fire. Stand off!"
But the figure continued to come towards us. Then Crack! Crack! Crack! went the revolver, and next moment there was a frightful scream and the sound of galloping hoofs. I saw no more, for, as Jim fired, my horse reared and fell back, crushing me beneath him.
I suppose I must have been stunned by the fall, for when I recovered my senses Spicer was leaning over me.
"Is he gone?" I asked as soon as I could speak.
"Yes! Gone like mad across the plain and the cattle with him. I must either have missed him, or the bullet must have passed clean through him."
As there was now no further reason why we should remain where we were, we returned to the Homestead and told our tale. Then when it was light enough, we had our breakfast and mounted our horses and went out into the scrub to look for the cattle we had lost. By the time dusk fell we had collected three hundred and fifty out of the five hundred head Ruford had brought on to the plain. The poor beasts were quite knocked up; and as it was useless thinking of pushing them on in that condition, we were consequently compelled to camp them for one more night on that awful plain. But to our delight we saw no more of the Phantom Stockman.