“There! a ghost with a rope around his neck!” said Lilly. “If we had finished Tom Terror that day I could call the speerit by name, but Tom got off alive, and report says that he’s hyar now, and in the flesh. When I got hyar a minute ago I heerd something come staggering down the canyon, and all at once that thing came in sight, and stopped whar it’s been standing ever since.”
The canyon at that point was not very wide; a gentle toss would have taken a pebble easily across, and the moonlight fell uninterrupted upon the uncanny object upon which the starting eyes of the Vigilantes were fixed.
“That’s no ghost,” retorted Moravy. “Speerits ar’ some kind o’ air thet kin git over ground without noise, but that fellow rattles the pebbles; he staggers, falls ag’in’ the wall, an’ then—bless my heart! his hands ar’ tied! that’s why he can’t pick up the rope. Whar in the name of death! ar’ Louis?”
The next instant the Creole answered the excited Moravy, for something long, dark and serpent-like shot through the moonshine, and fell over the head of the object staggering along the wall.
The two men at the month of the cave darted into the canyon with exclamations of astonishment, as the Creole jerked the “ghost” from his feet, and brought him heavily to the ground.
The little old Creole would not let his companions assist his endeavours; therefore, they could do nothing but sit by and watch.
Meanwhile the Creole worked on until at last he looked at his companions in triumph.
Wild and excited, the revenger had sprung erect, and he stood before the three Vigilantes.
“Who do you call yourself?”
“My name is Darrell.”