A spot of bluish smoke—still preserving its balloon shape—was slowly rolling up against the sky. A dark blotch beneath indicated the outlines of an “island” of timber.
So distant was the “motte,” the smoke, and the sound, that only the eye of an experienced prairie-man would have seen the first, or his ear heard the last, from the spot where Zeb Stump was standing.
But Zeb saw the one, and heard the other.
“Durned queery!” he muttered, still stooped in the attitude of a gardener dibbing in his young cabbage-plants.
“Dog-goned queery, to say the leest on’t. Who in ole Nick’s name kin be huntin’ out thur—whar theer ain’t game enuf to pay for the powder an shet? I’ve been to thet ere purayra island; an I know there ain’t nothin’ thur ’ceptin’ coyoats. What they get to live on, only the Eturnal kin tell!”
“Wagh!” he went on, after a short silence. “Some storekeeper from the town, out on a exkurshun, as he’d call it, who’s proud o’ poppin’ away at them stinkin’ varmints, an ’ll go hum wi’ a story he’s been a huntin’ wolves! Wal. ’Tain’t no bizness o’ myen. Let yurd-stick hev his belly-ful o’ sport. Heigh! thur’s somethin’ comin’ this way. A hoss an somebody on his back—streakin’ it as if hell war arter him, wi’ a pitchfork o’ red-het lightnin’! What! As I live, it air the Headless! It is, by the jumpin’ Geehosophat!”
The observation of the old hunter was quite correct. There could be no mistake about the character of the cavalier, who, just clearing himself from the cloud of sulphureous smoke—now falling, dispersed over the prairie—came galloping on towards the spot where Zeb stood. It was the horseman without a head.
Nor could there be any doubt as to the direction he was taking—as straight towards Zeb as if he already saw, and was determined on coming up with him!
A braver man than the backwoodsman could not have been found within the confines of Texas. Cougar, or jaguar—bear, buffalo, or Red Indian—he could have encountered without quailing. Even a troop of Comanches might have come charging on, without causing him half the apprehension felt at sight of that solitary equestrian.
With all his experience of Nature in her most secret haunts—despite the stoicism derived from that experience—Zeb Stump was not altogether free from superstitious fancies. Who is?