If the impression made upon the servant was one of the wildest awe, equally had it stricken the conspirators.
The searchers, though less frightened by the strange phenomenon, were none the less puzzled to explain it.
Up to the instant of its disappearance no explanation had been attempted—save that jocularly conveyed in the bizarre speech of the borderer.
“What do you make of it, gentlemen?” said the major, addressing those that had clustered around him: “I confess it mystifies me.”
“An Indian trick?” suggested one. “Some decoy to draw us into an ambuscade?”
“A most unlikely lure, then;” remarked another; “certainly the last that would attract me.”
“I don’t think it’s Indian,” said the major; “I don’t know what to think. What’s your opinion of it, Spangler?”
The tracker shook his head, as if equally uncertain.
“Do you think it’s an Indian in disguise?” urged the officer, pressing him for an answer.
“I know no more than yourself, major,” replied he. “It should be somethin’ of that kind: for what else can it be? It must eyther be a man, or a dummy!”