"Alas! it is too true what Pluto has been telling you. My brother is missing. He has not been seen since the night before last. His horse came home, with spots of blood upon the saddle. O Zeb! it's fearful to think of it!"

"Sure enuf that _air_ ugly news. He rud out somewhar, and the hoss kim back 'ithout him? I don't weesh to gie ye unneedcessary pain, Miss Lewaze; but, as they air still sarchin' I mout be some help at that ere bizness; and maybe ye won't mind tellin' me the particklers?"

These were imparted, as far as known to her. The gardes scene and its antecedents were alone kept back. Oberdoffer was given as authority for the belief, that Henry had gone off after the mustanger.

The narrative was interrupted by bursts of grief, changing to indignation, when she came to tell Zeb of the suspicion entertained by the people--that Maurice was the murderer.

"It air a lie!" cried the hunter, partaking of the same sentiment: "a false, parjured lie! an he air a stinkin' skunk that invented it. The thing's impossible. The mowstanger ain't the man to a dud sech a deed as that. An' why shed he have dud it? If thur hed been an ill-feelin'

atween them. But thur wa'n't. I kin answer for the mowstanger--for more'n oncest I've heern him talk o' your brother in the tallest kind o'

tarms. In coorse he hated yur cousin Cash--an who doesn't, I shed like to know? Excuse me for sayin' it. As for the other, it air different.

Ef thar hed been a quarrel an hot blood atween them--"

"No--no!" cried the young Creole, forgetting herself in the agony of her grief. "It was all over. Henry was reconciled. He said so; and Maurice--"

The astounded look of the listener brought a period to her speech.

Covering her face with her hands, she buried her confusion in a flood of tears.

"Hoh--oh!" muttered Zeb; "thur _hev_ been somethin'? D'ye say, Miss Lewaze, thur war a--a--quarrel atween yur brother--"

"Dear, dear Zeb!" cried she, removing her hands, and confronting the stalwart hunter with an air of earnest entreaty, "promise me, you will keep my secret? Promise it, as a friend--as a brave true-hearted man!

You will--you will?"

The pledge was given by the hunter raising his broad palm, and extending it with a sonorous slap over the region of his heart.

In five minutes more he was in possession of a secret which woman rarely confides to man--except to him who can profoundly appreciate the confidence.

The hunter showed less surprise than might have been expected; merely muttering to himself:--

"I thort it wild come to somethin' o' the sort--specially arter thet ere chase acrost the purayra."

"Wal, Miss Lewaze," he continued, speaking in a tone of kindly approval, "Zeb Stump don't see anythin' to be ashamed o' in all thet. Weemen will be weemen all the world over--on the purayras or off o' them; an ef ye have lost yur young heart to the mowstanger, it wud be the tallest kind o' a mistake to serpose ye hev displaced yur aff.e.c.kshuns, as they calls it. Though he air Irish, he aint none o' the common sort; thet he aint.

As for the rest ye've been tellin' me, it only sarves to substantify what I've been sayin'--that it air parfickly unpossible for the mowstanger to hev dud the dark deed; that is, ef thur's been one dud at all. Let's hope thur's nothin' o' the kind. What proof hez been found?

Only the hoss comin' home wi' some rid spots on the seddle?"

"Alas! there is more. The people were all out yesterday. They followed a trail, and saw something, they would not tell me what. Father did not appear as if he wished me to know what they had seen; and I--I feared, for reasons, to ask the others. They've gone off again--only a short while--just as you came in sight on the other side."

"But the mowstanger? What do it say for hisself?"

"Oh, I thought you knew. He has not been found either. _Mon Dieu! mon Dieu_! He, too, may have fallen by the same hand that has struck down my brother!"

"Ye say they war on a trail? His'n I serpose? If he be livin' he oughter be foun' at his shanty on the crik. Why didn't they go thar?

Ah! now I think o't, thur's n.o.body knows the adzack sittavashun o' that ere domycile 'ceptin' myself I reckon: an if it war that greenhorn Spangler as war guidin' o' them he'd niver be able to lift a trail acrost the chalk purayra. Hev they gone that way agin?"

"They have. I heard some of them say so."

"Wal, if they're gone in sarch o' the mowstanger I reck'n I mout as well go too. I'll gie tall odds I find him afore they do."

"It is for that I've been so anxious to see you. There am many rough men along with papa. As they went away I heard them use wild words.

There were some of those called 'Regulators.' They talked of lynching and the like. Some of them swore terrible oaths of vengeance. O my G.o.d! if they should find _him_, and he cannot make clear his innocence, in the height of their angry pa.s.sions--cousin Ca.s.sius among the number-- you understand what I mean--who knows what may be done to him? Dear Zeb, for my sake--for his, whom you call friend--go--go! Reach the Alamo before them, and warn him of the danger! Your horse is slow.

Take mine--any one you can find in the stable--"

"Thur's some truth in what ye say," interrupted the hunter, preparing to move off. "Thur mout be a smell o' danger for the young fellur; an I'll do what I kin to avart it. Don't be uneezay, Miss Lewaze. Thur's not sech a partickler hurry. Thet ere shanty ain't agoin' ter be foun'

'ithout a spell o' sarchin'. As to ridin' yur spotty I'll manage better on my ole maar. Beside, the critter air reddy now if Plute hain't tuk off the saddle. Don't be greetin' yur eyes out--thet's a good chile!

Maybe it'll be all right yit 'bout yur brother; and as to the mowstanger, I hain't no more surspishun o' his innersense than a unborn babby."

The interview ended by Zeb making obeisance in backwoodsman style, and striding out of the verandah; while the young Creole glided off to her chamber, to soothe her troubled spirit in supplications for his success.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

AN INTERCEPTED EPISTLE.

Urged by the most abject fear, had El Coyote and his three comrades rushed back to their horses, and scrambled confusedly into the saddle.

They had no idea of returning to the jacale of Maurice Gerald. On the contrary, their only thought was to put s.p.a.ce between themselves and that solitary dwelling--whose owner they had encountered riding towards it in such strange guise.

That it was "Don Mauricio" not one of them doubted. All four knew him by sight--Diaz better than any--but all well enough to be sure it was the _Irlandes_. There was his horse, known to them; his _armas de agua_ of jaguar-skin; his _Navajo_ blanket, in shape differing from the ordinary serape of Saltillo;--and his _head_!

They had not stayed to scrutinise the features; but the hat was still in its place--the sombrero of black glaze which Maurice was accustomed to wear. It had glanced in their eyes, as it came under the light of the moon.

Besides, they had seen the great dog, which Diaz remembered to be his.

The staghound had sprung forward in the midst of the struggle, and with a fierce growl attacked the a.s.sailant--though it had not needed this to accelerate their retreat.

Fast as their horses could carry them, they rode through the bottom timber; and, ascending the bluff by one of its ravines--not that where they had meant to commit murder--they reached the level of the upper plateau.

Nor did they halt there for a single second; but, galloping across the plain, re-entered the chapparal, and spurred on to the place where they had so skilfully transformed themselves into Comanches.

The reverse metamorphosis, if not so carefully, was more quickly accomplished. In haste they washed the war-paint from their skins-- availing themselves of some water carried in their canteens;--in haste they dragged their civilised habiliments from the hollow tree, in which they had hidden them; and, putting them on in like haste, they once more mounted their horses, and rode towards the Leona.

On their homeward way they conversed only of the headless horseman: but, with their thoughts under the influence of a supernatural terror, they could not satisfactorily account for an appearance so unprecedented; and they were still undecided as they parted company on the outskirts of the village--each going to his own jacale.

"_Carrai_!" exclaimed the Coyote, as he stepped across the threshold of his, and dropped down upon his cane couch. "Not much chance of sleeping after that. _Santos Dios_! such a sight! It has chilled the blood to the very bottom of my veins. And nothing here to warm me. The canteen empty; the posada shut up; everybody in bed!

"_Madre de Dios_! what can it have been? Ghost it could not be; flesh and bones I grasped myself; so did Vicente on the other side? I felt that, or something very like it, under the tiger-skin. _Santissima_! it could not be a cheat!

"If a contrivance, why and to what end? Who cares to play carnival on the prairies--except myself, and my camarados? _Mil demonios_! what a grim masquerader!

"_Carajo_! am I forestalled? Has some other had the offer, and earned the thousand dollars? Was it the Irlandes himself, dead, decapitated, carrying his head in his hand?

"Bah! it could not be--ridiculous, unlikely, altogether improbable!

"But what then?

"Ha! I have it! A hundred to one I have it! He may have got warning of our visit, or, at least, had suspicions of it. 'Twas a trick got up to try us!--perhaps himself in sight, a witness of our disgraceful flight? _Maldito_!

"But who could have betrayed us? No one. Of course no one could tell of _that_ intent. How then should he have prepared such an infernal surprise?

"Ah! I forget. It was broad daylight as we made the crossing of the long prairie. We may have been seen, and our purpose suspected? Just so--just so. And then, while we were making our toilet in the chapparal, the other could have been contrived and effected. That, and that only, can be the explanation!