The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse. Reid Mayne
was a wild exclamation, but it was drawn from me by no common cause. In arranging my lazo, I had taken my eyes from the chase, only for a moment: when I looked out again, the horse had disappeared!
With a mechanical movement I drew bridle, almost wrenching my horse upon his haunches; indeed, the animal had half halted of his own accord, and with a low whimper seemed to express terror. What could it mean? Where was the wild-horse?
I wheeled round, and round again, scanning the prairie on every side – though a single glance might have served. The plain, as already described, was level as a table; the horizon bounded the view: there was neither rock nor tree, nor bush nor weed, nor even long grass. The sward was of the kind known upon the prairies as “buffalo-grass” (Sesleria dactyloides), short when full grown, but then rising scarcely two inches above the soil. A serpent could hardly have found concealment under it, but a horse —
Merciful heaven! where was the steed?
An indefinable feeling of awe crept over me: I trembled; I felt my horse trembling between my thighs. He was covered with foam and sweat; so was I – the effects of the hard ride: but the cold perspiration of terror was fast breaking upon me. The mystery was heavy and appalling!
Chapter Eighteen.
The phantom-horse
I have encountered dangers – not a few – but they were the ordinary perils of flood and field, and I understood them. I have had one limb broken, and its fellow bored with an ounce of lead. I have swum from a sinking ship, and have fallen upon the battle-field. I have looked at the muzzles of a hundred muskets aimed at my person, at less than thirty yards’ distance, and felt the certainty of death though the volley was fired, and I still live.
Well, you will no doubt acknowledge these to be perils. Do not mistake me; I am not boasting of having encountered them; I met them with more or less courage – some of them with fear – but if the fears inspired by all were combined into one emotion of terror, it would not equal in intensity that which I experienced at the moment I pulled up my horse upon the prairie.
I have never been given to superstition; perhaps my religion is not strong enough for that; but at that moment I could not help yielding to a full belief in the supernatural. There was no natural cause – I could think of none – that would account for the mysterious disappearance of the horse. I had often sneered at the credulous sailor and his phantom-ship; had I lived to look upon a phenomenon equally strange yet true – a phantom-horse?
The hunters and trappers had indeed invested the white steed with this character; their stories recurred to my memory at the moment. I had used to smile at the simple credulity of the narrators. I was now prepared to believe them. They were true!
Or was I dreaming? Was it not all a dream? The search for the white steed – the surround – the chase – the long, long gallop?
For some moments I actually fancied that such might be the case; but soon my consciousness became clear again: I was in the saddle, and my panting, smoking steed was under me. That was real and positive. I remembered all the incidents of the chase. They, too, were real of a certainty; the white steed had been there: he was gone. The trappers spoke the truth. The horse was a phantom!
Oppressed with this thought – which had almost become a conviction – I sat in my saddle, bent and silent, my eyes turned upon the earth, but their gaze fixed on vacuity. The lazo had dropped from my fingers, and the bridle-reins trailed untouched over the withers of my horse.
My belief in the supernatural was of short duration, how long I know not, for during its continuance I remained in a state of bewilderment.
My senses at length returned. My eyes had fallen upon a fresh hoof-print on the turf, directly in front of me. I knew it was that made by the white steed, and this awoke me to a process of reasoning. Had the horse been a phantom, he could not have made a track. I had never heard of the track of a ghost; though a horse-ghost might be different from the common kind!
My reflections on this head ended in the determination to follow the trail as far as it should lead; of course to the point where the steed must have mounted into the air, or evaporated – the scene of his apotheosis.
With this resolve, I gathered my reins, and rode forward upon the trail, keeping my eyes fixed upon the hoof-prints.
The line was direct, and I had ridden nearly two hundred yards, when my horse came to a sudden stop. I looked out forward to discover the cause of his halting; with that glance vanished my new-born superstitions.
At the distance of some thirty paces, a dark line was seen upon the prairie, running transversely to the course I was following. It appeared to be a narrow crack in the plain; but on spurring nearer, it proved to be a fissure of considerable width – one of those formations known throughout Spanish America as barrancas. The earth yawned, as though rent by an earthquake; but water had evidently something to do with the formation of the chasm. It was of nearly equal width at top and bottom, and its bed was covered with a débris of rocks rounded by attrition. Its sides were perfectly vertical, and the stratification, even to the surface-turf, exactly corresponded – thus rendering it invisible at the distance of but a few paces from its brink. It appeared to shallow to the right, and no doubt ended not far off in that direction. Towards the left, on the contrary, I could see that it became deeper and wider. At the point where I had reached it, its bottom was nearly twenty feet from the surface of the prairie.
Of course, the disappearance of the white steed was no longer a mystery. He had made a fearful leap – nearly twenty feet sheer! There was the torn turf on the brink of the chasm, and the displacement of the loose stones, where he had bounded into its bed. He had gone to the left – down the barranca. The abrasion of his hoofs was visible upon the rocks.
I looked down the defile: he was not to be seen. The barranca turned off by an angle at no great distance. He had already passed round the angle, and was out of sight!
It was clear that he had escaped; that to fellow would be of no use; and, with this reflection, I abandoned all thoughts of carrying the chase farther.
After giving way to a pang or two of disappointment, I began to think of the position in which I had placed myself. It is true I was now relieved from the feeling of awe that, but a moment before, had oppressed me; but my situation was far from being a pleasant one. I was at least thirty miles from the rancheria, and I could not tell in what direction it lay. The sun was setting, and therefore I had the points of the compass; but I had not the slightest idea whether we had ridden eastward or westward after leaving the settlements. I might ride back on my own trail; perhaps I might: it was a doubtful point. Neither through the timber, nor on the open prairie, had the chase gone in a direct line. Moreover, I noticed in many places, as we glided swiftly along, that the turf was cut up by numerous hoof-tracks: droves of mustangs had passed over the ground. It would be no easy matter for me to retrace the windings of that long gallop.
One thing was evident: it would be useless for me to make the attempt before morning. There was not half-an-hour of sun left, and at night the trail could not be followed. I had no alternative but to remain where I was until another day should break.
But how remain? I was hungry; still worse, I was choking with thirst. Not a drop of water was near; I had seen none for twenty miles. The long hot ride had made me thirsty to an unusual degree, and my poor horse was in a similar condition. The knowledge that no water was near added, as it always does, to the agony, and rendered the physical want more difficult to be endured.
I scanned the bottom of the barranca, and tracked it with my eye as far as I could see: it was waterless as the lain itself. The rocks rested upon dry sand and gravel; not a drop of the wished-for element appeared within its bed, although it was evident that at some time a torrent must have swept along its channel.
After some reflection, it occurred to me that by following the barranca downward, I might find water; at least, this was the most likely direction in which to search for it. I rode forward, therefore, directing my horse along the edge of the chasm.
The fissure deepened as I advanced, until, at the distance of a mile from where I first