Chapter Forty Five.
A Trail gone Blind.
Was it a phantom? Surely it could not be human?
So questioned El Coyote and his terrified companions. So, too, had the scared Galwegian interrogated himself, until his mind, clouded by repeated appeals to the demijohn, became temporarily relieved of the terror.
In a similar strain had run the thoughts of more than a hundred others, to whom the headless horseman had shown himself—the party of searchers who accompanied the major.
It was at an earlier hour, and a point in the prairie five miles farther east, that to these the weird figure had made itself manifest.
Looking westward, with the sun-glare in their eyes, they had seen only its shape, and nothing more—at least nothing to connect it with Maurice the mustanger.
Viewing it from the west, with the sun at his back, the Galwegian had seen enough to make out a resemblance to his master—if not an absolute identification.
Under the light of the moon the four Mexicans, who knew Maurice Gerald by sight, had arrived at a similar conclusion.