"Rather a fool trick of mine, this night-work," said he, as his eyes hunted in vain for any sign of what he had come to seek. "I reckon likely I'll have to camp till morning, and then, maybe, if his bones are lying anywhere round here, I'll manage to find them." He drew rein irresolutely on the margin of a park-like expanse of undulating meadow larger than any he had seen yet.
"Hullo! what's that under the Lone Pine in the middle of the meadow?" A magnificent solitary pine-tree stood there in the moonlight, towering aloft, and at its foot a dark, square object appeared.
"Why, it looks like a house in this light," he said; "but it can't hardly be one neither." He turned his horse's head towards it and rode nearer. "It's a house, by George! A house up here! No, I'm blessed if it is. It is only a rock, but it's mighty like one all the same. Hullo! here's a queer thing lying close to the foot of it; looks like an old carcass of some sort or other. By George! but it's a dead horse." He reined up and the animal he bestrode snorted at the strange object. It was the dried shell of a horse, so to speak; the wolves and the eagle-hawks had taken the flesh and the inside portions, but the skeleton had remained intact, and so, too, had the hide. In that pure, dry air the skin, instead of decaying, had become hard and stiff, and clung to the ribs and bony framework still. He could see now that his mistake in taking the rock for a house was a very pardonable one in that deceptive light, for it was much the size of an ordinary adobe cottage, and it rose square and abrupt from the level, grassy ground. He threw his head back, and his eyes sought the top of the noble pine whose towering head seemed to strike against the stars.
"Well, that's the finest tree I ever saw outside of California," said the prospector.
He undid the lariat and dismounted, spade in hand.
"Dead horses aint exactly common objects hereabouts," said he. "If this one owned such a thing as a boss when he was alive, perhaps his boss might be lying hereabouts, too."
It was a shrewd guess, and as he stepped round the corner of the rock it was instantly verified. The body of the man lay there, stiff and dried like that of his beast. The clothing seemed to have partly protected the trunk and limbs from the birds of prey, but the white skull shone bare and ghastly. The long boots proclaimed him an American.
"Here's my man, sure enough," said Stephens, as he leaned on the spade and looked down at the remains. "Think of him getting rubbed out like this all alone up here in the mountains. No one's ever been near him since, I guess. I wonder who he was?"
He went back to the dead horse and looked over it once more. There were iron shoes on the forehoofs. "That's another proof, if one were wanted, of his owner being an American," he said. "Perhaps I could find his brand." He struck a match and held it close to the animal's quarter, but the skin there had been rent and frayed by the wild things that had devoured the meat, and he could not distinguish it.