THE SKELETON’S STORY.
It will require all the dramatic power of which you are capable to recite this selection and do it full justice. Be wide-awake, quick in tone and gesture, shouting at one time, whispering at another, speaking with your whole body. The emotions of fear and horror are especially prominent.
It is two miles ahead to the foot-hills—two miles of parched turf and rocky space. To the right—the left—behind, is the rolling prairie. This broad valley strikes the Sierra Nevadas and stops as if a wall had been built across it.
Ride closer! What is this on the grass? A skull here—a rib there—bones scattered about as the wild beasts left them after the horrible feast. The clean-picked skull grins and stares—every bone and scattered lock of hair has its story of a tragedy. And what besides these relics? More bones—not scattered, but lying in heaps—a vertebra with ribs attached—a fleshless skull bleaching under the summer sun. Wolves! Yes. Count the heaps of bones and you will find nearly a score. Open boats are picked up at sea with neither life nor sign to betray their secret. Skeletons are found upon the prairie, but they tell a plain story to those who halt beside them. Let us listen:
Away off to the right you can see treetops. Away off to the left you can see the same sight. The skeleton is in line between the two points. He left one grove to ride to the other. To ride! Certainly; a mile away is the skeleton of a horse or mule. The beast fell and was left there.
It is months since that ride, and the trail has been obliterated. Were it otherwise, and you took it up from the spot where the skeleton horse now lies, you would find the last three or four miles made at a tremendous pace.
“Step! step! step!”
What is it? Darkness has gathered over mountain and prairie as the hunter jogs along over the broken ground. Overhead the countless stars look down upon him—around him is the pall of night. There was a patter of footsteps on the dry grass. He halts and peers around him, but the darkness is too deep for him to discover any cause for alarm.