More than this. He had seen the latter before entering the island. He had seen him far off, and might easily have shunned him. But instead of doing so, he had immediately commenced making approach towards him!

He had continued it--using the timber as a screen, and acting as one who stalks the timid stag, with the difference of a heart-dread which no deer-stalker could ever know.

He had continued it; until the shelter of the _motte_ gave him a momentary respite, not from fear, but the apprehension of a failure.

He had not ridden ten miles across the prairie without a design; and it was this that caused him to go so cautiously--guiding his horse over the softest turf, and through the selvedge of the chapparal--in such a way as neither to expose his person to view, nor cause a rustle among the branches, that might be heard to the distance of ten yards.

No one observing his manoeuvres as he moved amid the timber island, could have mistaken their meaning--at least so far as related to the object for which they were being made.

His eye was upon the Headless Horseman, his whole soul absorbed in watching the movements of the latter--by which he appeared to regulate his own.

At first, fear seemed to be his prevailing thought. After a time, it was succeeded by an impatience that partially emboldened him. The latter plainly sprang from his perceiving, that the Headless Horseman, instead of approaching the timber, still kept at a regular distance of two hundred yards from its edge.

That this chafed him was evident from a string of soliloquies, muttered half aloud. They were not free from blasphemy; but that was characteristic of the man who p.r.o.nounced them.

"d.a.m.n the infernal brute! If he'd only come twenty yards nearer, I could fetch him. My gun won't carry that distance. I'd miss him for sure, and then it'll be all up. I may never get the chance again.

Confound him! He's all of twenty yards too far off." As if the last was an ambiguity rather than a conviction, the speaker appeared to measure with his eye the s.p.a.ce that separated him from the headless rider--all the while holding in hand a short Yager rifle, capped and c.o.c.ked--ready for instant discharge.

"No use," he continued, after a process of silent computation. "I might hit the beast with a spent ball, but only to scare without crippling him. I must have patience, and wait till he gets a little nearer. d.a.m.n them wolves! He might come in, if it wasn't for them. So long as they're about him, he'll give the timber a wide berth. It's the nature of these Texas howes--devil skin them!

"I wonder if coaxing would do any good?" he proceeded, after a pause.

"Maybe the sound of a man's voice would bring the animal to a stand?

Doubtful. He's not likely to 've heard much of that lately. I suppose it would only frighten him! The sight of my horse would be sure to do it, as it did before; though that was in the moonlight. Besides, he was chased by the howling staghound. No wonder his being wild, then, ridden as he is by h.e.l.l knows what; for it can't be--Bah! After all, there must be some trick in it; some d.a.m.ned infernal trick!"

For a while the speaker checked his horse with a tight rein. And, leaning forward, so as to get a good view through the trees, continued to scan the strange shape that was slowly skirting the timber.

"It's _his_ horse--sure as shootin'! His saddle, serape, and all. How the h.e.l.l could they have come into the possession of the other?"

Another pause of reflection.

"Trick, or no trick, it's an ugly business. Whoever's planned it, must know all that happened that night; and by G.o.d, if that thing lodged there, I've got to get it back. What a fool; to have bragged about it as I did! Curse the crooked luck!

"He _won't_ come nearer. He's provokingly shy of the timber. Like all his breed, he knows he's safest in the open ground.

"What's to be done? See if I can call him up. May be he may like to hear a human voice. If it'll only fetch him twenty yards nearer, I'll be satisfied. Hanged if I don't try."

Drawing a little closer to the edge of the thicket, the speaker p.r.o.nounced that call usually employed by Texans to summon a straying horse.

"Proh--proh--proshow! Come kindly! come, old horse!"

The invitation was extended to no purpose. The Texan steed did not seem to understand it; at all events, as an invitation to friendly companionship. On the contrary, it had the effect of frightening him; for no sooner fell the "proh" upon his ear, than letting go the mouthful of gra.s.s already gathered, he tossed his head aloft with a snort that proclaimed far greater fear than that felt for either wolf or vulture!

A mustang, he knew that his greatest enemy was man--a man mounted upon a horse; and by this time his scent had disclosed to him the proximity of such a foe.

He stayed not to see what sort of man, or what kind of horse. His first instinct had told him that both were enemies.

As his rider by this time appeared to have arrived at the same conclusion, there was no tightening of the rein; and he was left free to follow his own course--which carried him straight off over the prairie.

A bitter curse escaped from the lips of the unsuccessful stalker as he spurred out into the open ground.

Still more bitter was his oath, as he beheld the Headless Horseman pa.s.sing rapidly beyond reach--unscathed by the bullet he had sent to earnestly after him.

CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE.

ON THE TRAIL.

Zeb Stump stayed but a short while on the spot, where he had discovered the hoof-print with the broken shoe.

Six seconds sufficed for its identification; after which he rose to his feet, and continued along the trail of the horse that had made it.

He did not re-mount, but strode forward on foot; the old mare, obedient to a signal he had given her, keeping at a respectful distance behind him.

For more than a mile he moved on in this original fashion--now slowly, as the trail became indistinct--quickening his pace where the print of the imperfect shoe could be seen without difficulty.

Like an archaeologist engaged upon a tablet of hieroglyphic history, long entombed beneath the ruins of a lost metropolis--whose characters appear grotesque to all except himself--so was it with Zeb Stump, as he strode on, translating the "sign" of the prairie.

Absorbed in the act, and the conjectures that accompanied it, he had no eyes for aught else. He glanced neither to the green savannah that stretched inimitably around, nor to the blue sky that spread specklessly above him. Alone to the turf beneath his feet was his eye and attention directed.

A sound--not a sight--startled him from his all-engrossing occupation.

It was the report of a rifle; but so distant, as to appear but the detonation of a percussion-cap that had missed fire.

Instinctively he stopped; at the same time raising his eyes, but without unbending his body.

With a quick glance the horizon was swept, along the half dozen points whence the sound should have proceeded.

A spot of bluish smoke--still preserving its balloon shape--was slowly rolling up against the sky. A dark blotch beneath indicated the outlines of an "island" of timber.

So distant was the "motte," the smoke, and the sound, that only the eye of an experienced prairie-man would have seen the first, or his ear heard the last, from the spot where Zeb Stump was standing.

But Zeb saw the one, and heard the other.

"Durned queery!" he muttered, still stooped in the att.i.tude of a gardener dibbing in his young cabbage-plants.

"Dog-goned queery, to say the leest on't. Who in ole Nick's name kin be huntin' out thur--whar theer ain't game enuf to pay for the powder an shet? I've been to thet ere purayra island; an I know there ain't nothin' thur 'ceptin' coyoats. What _they_ get to live on, only the Eturnal kin tell!"

"Wagh!" he went on, after a short silence. "Some storekeeper from the town, out on a exkurshun, as he'd call it, who's proud o' poppin' away at them stinkin' varmints, an 'll go hum wi' a story he's been a huntin'

_wolves_! Wal. 'Tain't no bizness o' myen. Let yurd-stick hev his belly-ful o' sport. Heigh! thur's somethin' comin' this way. A hoss an somebody on his back--streakin' it as if h.e.l.l war arter him, wi' a pitchfork o' red-het lightnin'! What! As I live, it air the Headless!

It is, by the jumpin' Geehosophat!"

The observation of the old hunter was quite correct. There could be no mistake about the character of the cavalier, who, just clearing himself from the cloud of sulphureous smoke--now falling, dispersed over the prairie--came galloping on towards the spot where Zeb stood. It was the horseman without a head.

Nor could there be any doubt as to the direction he was taking--as straight towards Zeb as if he already saw, and was determined on coming up with him!

A braver man than the backwoodsman could not have been found within the confines of Texas. Cougar, or jaguar--bear, buffalo, or Red Indian--he could have encountered without quailing. Even a troop of Comanches might have come charging on, without causing him half the apprehension felt at sight of that solitary equestrian.

With all his experience of Nature in her most secret haunts--despite the stoicism derived from that experience--Zeb Stump was not altogether free from superst.i.tious fancies. Who is?