“Now, Mr. Darke, we’ll go to yer gal!” said Leander.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
In a little chapparal not far away they found Vinnie, and near her, sitting on the ground, was Alonphilus, the dwarf. At a little distance was tethered the white horse—there could be no mistaking it—the same milk-white steed that had carried the ghastly form of Meno, the Spirit Warrior, as he rushed by them a little while before, bearing the girl in his grisly embrace.
Pete Wimple approached the animal, as it stood quietly picking at the beaten-down prairie grass, and then kindly touched it once or twice on the back.
“What ye doin’?” asked Leander. “Tryin’ to see if it’s well groomed?”
“No; I was tryin’ to make up my mind if ’twas ra’al, ginuine hoss-flesh, or jist a shadder.”
“It’s a real hoss!” said the giant, stooping, while all their eyes followed every motion curiously, and stretching up the ghastly length of the bony frame of a large, powerfully-built man from out of the thick grass at his feet. “And here’s the Spirit Warrior as has killed and scart to death more Injins in the last six years than ten men could finish off in the old-fashioned way in ten years! My little brother, thar on the ground, a-tyin’ a big knot in the end of that string, ain’t very wide acrost, as ye can see, and the space atween the ribs of this ’ere thing is big anuff for him to crawl in all over. So, when he gits inside of it, and stands upon that white hoss and flings bomb-shells, and fires off rockets among a pack of reds, I guess they think he’s one of the tallest kind of spirit warriors, and about the worst accident as ever befell ’em! I’m a sort of a vantriloquizer, and I uster hide in the woods, and holler like Meno, the spirit, is said to.”
Darke, leaving Vinnie and Clancy to the enjoyment of each other’s society for a few moments, had come forward while the giant was speaking, and as he finished, he said:
“And that explains the mystery of the oaken chest, also, does it not?”
“That’s all there is of the hull mystery and the hull secret,” said the giant, in reply. “I don’t mind tellin’ about it now, cause I’m a-goin’ to marry and retire from bizness. My uncle Peter—and he was a unavarsal—”