"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I recollect nothin' about it."
The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.
"What have you done with his money?"
"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"
The judge and I stared at him.
"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there. I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, he stood before me. If I turned, he turned too. Sometimes he came behind me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him agin."
"Queer that," observed the judge.
"Ay, very queer!" said Bob mournfully. "But it's all no use. Nothin' does me any good. I sha'n't be better—I shall never have peace till I'm hung."
Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed sentence on himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar feeling, and could not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an unmoved countenance.
"Indeed!" said he, "indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're hung."