Many were the suggestions advanced, but none were correct.
That he was first white and then seemed to vanish from sight, they all knew. Yet had they been close enough to see how the trickster produced the uncanny effect, they would have been surprised—and humiliated—by its simplicity.
The ghostly appearance was obtained from a peaked hood which fitted over the fellow’s head and a long, flowing robe, white on one side and black on the other.
By seizing the ends of the robe, with the white side out, as he always wore it when starting on a raid, and waving his arms, he could produce the eerie, floating effect. And as his horse was a dark brown, by either riding slowly or leaping and plunging, he could give suggestion of traveling through the air, at will.
And his disappearing act was equally easy.
Whenever pursuit grew too close or he desired to inspire additional terror vanishing and then appearing again, he simply pulled the robe over his head, keeping the black side out.
But in their ignorance of the truth, the cowboys taxed their imaginations to the utmost, without any other satisfaction than the whiling away of the weary hours they swept through the waving grass until dawn enabled them to scan the plains for a sight of either friend or foe.
Having ridden at a terrific pace, considering the handicap afforded by the darkness and the tall grass, Deadshot reached the edge of the swamps before daylight, and, to his satisfaction, was able to conceal his pony in some saplings and then climb into them, from which point of vantage he hoped to discover the cowlifter sneaking toward his hiding place.
With the gradual lightening of the plains, he was suddenly thrown into great excitement by the sight of a lone horseman approaching the bottoms cautiously.
Clutching his rifle tightly, he drew a bead on the man.