For all that it is not struck. It is stayed by a shout sent forth from the chapparal—by the edge of which a man has just made his appearance. The man is Zeb Stump.
“Stop that game!” cries the hunter, riding out from the underwood and advancing rapidly through the low bushes; “stop it, durn ye!”
“What game?” rejoins the ex-officer with a dismayed look, at the same time stealthily returning his knife to its sheath. “What the devil are you talking about? This brute’s got caught by the bridle. I was afraid he might get away again. I was going to cut his damned throat—so as to make sure of him.”
“Ah, thet’s what ye’re arter. Wal, I reck’n thur’s no need to cut the critter’s throat. We kin skewer it ’ithout thet sort o’ bloody bizness. It air the hoss’s throat ye mean, I s’pose?”
“Of course I mean the horse.”
“In coorse. As for the man, someb’y’s dud thet for him arready—if it be a man. What do you make o’ it, Mister Cash Calhoun?”
“Damned if I know what to make of it. I haven’t had time to get a good look at it. I’ve just this minute come up. By heaven!” he continues, feigning a grand surprise, “I believe it’s the body of a man; and dead!”
“Thet last air probibble enuf. ’Tain’t likely he’d be alive wi’ no head on his shoulders. Thar’s none under the blanket, is thar?”
“No; I think not. There cannot be?”
“Lift it a leetle, an see.”