“I reckon yu’ll find it thar.”
“Where?”
“Whar! In thet thur body as sits ’ithout a head, lookin’ dumbly down on ye!
“Ye kin all see,” continues the witness, pointing to the silent shape, “ye kin all see a red patch on the breast o’ the striped blanket. Thur’s a hole in the centre o’ it. Ahint that hole I reck’n thur’ll be another, in the young fellur’s karkidge. Thar don’t appear any to match it at the back. Thurfor I konklude, thet the bullet as did his bizness air still inside o’ him. S’posin’ we strip off his duds, an see!”
There is a tacit consent to this proposition of the witness. Two or three of the spectators—Sam Manly one of them—step forward; and with due solemnity proceed to remove the serapé.
As at the inauguration of a statue—whose once living original has won the right of such commemoration—the spectators stand in respectful silence at its uncovering, so stand they under the Texan tree, while the serapé is being raised from the shoulders of the Headless Horseman.
It is a silence solemn, profound, unbroken even by whispers. These are heard only after the unrobing is complete, and the dead body becomes revealed to the gaze of the assemblage.
It is dressed in a blouse of sky-blue cottonade—box plaited at the breast, and close buttoned to the throat.
The limbs are encased in a cloth of the like colour, with a lighter stripe along the seams. But only the thighs can be seen—the lower extremities being concealed by the “water-guards” of spotted skin tightly stretched over them.
Around the waist—twice twined around it—is a piece of plaited rope, the strands of horse’s hair. Before and behind, it is fastened to the projections of the high-peaked saddle. By it is the body retained in its upright attitude. It is further stayed by a section of the same rope, attached to the stirrups, and traversing—surcingle fashion—under the belly of the horse.