This was all the more probable from the style of his equitation—at short intervals bending forward in his saddle, and scanning the horizon before him, as if expecting to see some form outlined above the line of the sky.
Continuing to advance in this peculiar fashion, he also disappeared from view—exactly at the same point, where his precursor had ceased to be visible—to any one whose gaze might have been following him from the Fort or village.
An odd contingency—if such it were—that just at that very instant a third horseman rode forth from the outskirts of the little Texan town, and, like the other two, continued advancing in a direct line across the prairie.
He, also, was costumed as if for a journey. A “blanket-coat” of scarlet colour shrouded most of his person from sight—its ample skirts spread over his thighs, half concealing a short jäger rifle, strapped aslant along the flap of his saddle.
Like the foremost of the three, he exhibited no signs of a desire to move rapidly along the road. He was proceeding at a slow pace—even for a traveller. For all that, his manner betokened a state of mind far from tranquil; and in this respect he might be likened to the horseman who had more immediately preceded him.
But there was an essential difference between the actions of the two men. Whereas the cloaked cavalier appeared desirous of overtaking some one in advance, he in the red blanket coat seemed altogether to occupy himself in reconnoitring towards his rear.
At intervals he would slue himself round in the stirrups—sometimes half turn his horse—and scan the track over which he had passed; all the while listening, as though he expected to hear some one who should be coming after him.
Still keeping up this singular surveillance, he likewise in due time reached the point of disappearance, without having overtaken any one, or been himself overtaken.
Though at nearly equal distances apart while making the passage of the prairie, not one of the three horsemen was within sight of either of the others. The second, half-way between the other two, was beyond reach of the vision of either, as they were beyond his.
At the same glance no eye could have taken in all three, or any two of them; unless it had been that of the great Texan owl perched upon the summit of some high eminence, or the “whip-poor-will” soaring still higher in pursuit of the moon-loving moth.