“You’ve had a visit, haven’t you? A highwayman on an old gray nag——”
“How do you know that?” stammered Jim, quickly interrupting him. “Some one was here, but it wasn’t a road man, it was a ghost.”
While he said this, he shivered from head to foot, and looked around anxiously on all sides.
“Don’t be a fool,” I laughed. “Tell us a straight story. What has happened to you?”
“Meanwhile we had reached the cabin, and, as I sprang from the saddle, Jim pointed, with trembling hand, to the ground.”
“Here, look at this; you can see the prints of the ghostly horse’s hoofs,” said he, in a voice full of excitement. “I was cleaning up things in the cabin, when I suddenly heard a noise outside. I thought you fellows had returned, and went out-o’-doors to meet you. Horrified, I sprang back; before me, on a horse, nothing but skin and bones, was a man without a hat, with long black hair. He sat bolt upright in the saddle; he had a thick black beard; his face was ashen gray, and two eyes, wide open, stared at me in a ghastly way as only a specter’s can. I wanted to cry out, but my tongue seemed glued to my mouth—I felt my hair standing on end. Then the ghost turned his horse—started off at a gallop—I could plainly hear the rattling of the rider’s and the horse’s bones.”
Jim shuddered again at the remembrance of the horrifying spectacle.
“That was the same fellow that we followed,” cried Anderson; and I could only agree with him.
We then told Jim of our adventure, and quieted him by reasoning that it could not have been a ghost, but simply a human being, possibly some lunatic.
It was my custom before going to bed, to look after the horses. I left the hut that evening as usual, but hardly had I taken a few steps when suddenly I stopped as though my feet were rooted to the ground.