Several men at once came at the call, among them Pinto Paul.
“There’s the ghost, Pinto Paul; at least, he is more ghost now than he was a short while ago,” said Texas Jack.
“What is it?” he asked, in an awed way.
“A dead man, now, who was playing ghost a while since. He did not know that I was on duty at the gate there, for he heard Broncho Rawlings singing, and supposed he was alone on watch.
“As the ghost was trying to take down the barrier, to let the cattle out, I held him up, but, as he did not heed, I fired on him. I did not fire to kill, but to wing him, but just as I pulled trigger he fell into a hole I remember is there, and caught the bullet in a vital spot. But it shows that spirits can be killed, Pinto.”
The scout made no reply, for he was beginning to see that if the hacienda was haunted it must be by flesh and blood of ghostly forms.
“I’ll give you a hand, Jack,” said Buffalo Bill.
But the Texan dragged the white form out of the gully into which he had fallen, and shouldered it without an effort.
As he moved off toward the hacienda Buffalo Bill joined him, calling out to the scouts to keep the cattle quiet, while he went to investigate the ghost in the glare of the light.