He remembered his promise now, and it spurred him on, that and his faintly-defined presentiment of evil. Should any thing serious happen to Fred, how could he face Fannie?
“Around that point I must catch sight of him,” he muttered, as he urged on his good horse. “Unless I mistake, I can see the prairie for ten miles from there, and surely I was not insensible long enough for them to cross that stretch? And once in sight, I can guard him against danger.”
The big bay horse covered the ground, with long, deer-like bounds that swiftly lessened the distance. Though laboring heavily—for full fifteen miles had been traversed since leaving the bivouac, in addition to a long day’s travel—the noble brute did not falter. He would continue his stride until his great heart burst, as Ned well knew. But this was no time to consider the welfare of a horse, when the safety, perhaps the life of a dear friend hung in the balance.
With eagerly straining gaze, the young hunter gained and rounded the point of timber. A cry of wonder broke from his dry lips, and he abruptly drew rein. Not a living soul was to be seen, though the prairie stretched out before him, smooth and level almost as a ballroom floor.
Where could his friend have gone? Surely not straight on, across that tract? Impossible—it was fully ten miles, if an inch. Around the motte? No—for the trail led straight forward, as a glance showed him.
Then a sudden cry broke from Campbell’s lips, and he cast a rapid glance around. He saw that the moonlight had deceived him—that he was at least a mile further west than he had believed. All was plain to him now—the mystery was a mystery no longer.
“The baranca—they are there—it must be so! But how—my God! can that woman have been a spirit?”
The ranger reeled in his saddle. The strange events of that night had unmanned him, and wild fancies took possession of his brain. He half believed that this strange rider was nothing but a delusion—a phantom who had lured his young friend on to his death, by a fall down the baranca that, though still invisible, he well knew lay before him at only a few yards’ distance.
His mind a strange medley, Campbell urged his horse forward, and in half a dozen more bounds, stood upon the verge of the baranca; a deep, narrow ravine, with almost perpendicular sides, the bottom thickly strewn with jagged bowlders of different sizes. Though this ravine began less than a mile to the south, Ned knew that it ran north for ten times that distance, preserving the same general direction, though winding and tortuous.
Still sitting his horse he peered eagerly down into the baranca. The full moon behind him only lighted up a portion of the further side. The bottom was wrapped in darkness so deep that from where he stood, the eye could not penetrate it.