heard distinctly.
"Blast the mare! She's shied off that cursed trail again."
"Ye ain't lost it agin, hev ye?" growled a second voice.
"That's jist what I hev. And these blasted pine-knots don't give light
an inch beyond 'em. D----d if I don't think they make this cursed hole
blacker."
There was a laugh--a woman's laugh--hysterical, bitter, sarcastic,
exasperating. The second speaker, without heeding it, went on:
"What in thunder skeert the hosses? Did you see or hear anything?"
"Nothin'. The wood is like a graveyard."
The woman's voice again broke into a hoarse, contemptuous laugh. The
man resumed angrily:
"If you know anything, why in h--ll don't you say so, instead of
cackling like a d----d squaw there? P'raps you reckon you ken find the
trail too."
"Take this rope off my wrist," said the woman's voice, "untie my hands,
let me down, and I'll find it." She spoke quickly and with a Spanish
accent.
It was the men's turn to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that
six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of
Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," said the first
speaker dryly.
"Go to the devil, then," she said curtly.
"Not before a lady," responded the other. There was another laugh from
the men, the spurs jingled again, the three torches reappeared from
behind the tree, and then passed away in the darkness.
For a time silence and immutability possessed the woods; the great
trunks loomed upwards, their fallen brothers stretched their slow
length into obscurity. The sound of breathing again became audible; the
shape reappeared in the aisle, and recommenced its mystic dance.
Presently it was lost in the shadow of the largest tree, and to the
sound of breathing succeeded a grating and scratching of bark.
Suddenly, as if riven by lightning, a flash broke from the centre of
the tree-trunk, lit up the woods, and a sharp report rang through it.
After a pause the jingling of spurs and the dancing of torches were
revived from the distance.
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