The Headless Horseman (Horror Classic). Майн Рид

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СКАЧАТЬ the sight of a solitary horseman advancing along the trail interrupted his uncomfortable conjectures.

      It was no stranger who was drawing near. The colossal figure, clad in coarse habiliments, bearded to the buttons of his blanket coat, and bestriding the most contemptible looking steed that could have been found within a hundred miles of the spot, was an old acquaintance. Cassius Calhoun knew Zebulon Stump, and Zeb Stump knew Cash Calhoun, long before either had set foot upon the prairies of Texas.

      “You hain’t seed nuthin’ o’ the young lady, hev ye, Mister Calhoun?” inquired the hunter, as he rode up, with an unusual impressiveness of manner. “No, ye hain’t,” he continued, as if deducing his inference from the blank looks of the other. “Dog-gone my cats! I wonder what the hell hev becomed o’ her! Kewrious, too; sech a rider as she air, ter let the durned goat o’ a thing run away wi’ her. Wal! thur’s not much danger to be reeprehended. The mowstanger air putty sartin to throw his rope aroun’ the critter, an that ’ll put an eend to its capers. Why hev ye stopped hyur?”

      “I’m puzzled about the direction they’ve taken. Their tracks show they’ve been halted here; but I can see the shod hoofs no farther.”

      “Whoo! whoo! yur right, Mister Cashus! They hev been halted hyur; an been clost thegither too. They hain’t gone no further on the trail o’ the wild maars. Sartin they hain’t. What then?”

      The speaker scanned the surface of the plain with an interrogative glance; as if there, and not from Cassius Calhoun, expecting an answer to his question.

      “I cannot see their tracks anywhere,” replied the ex-captain.

      “No, kan’t ye? I kin though. Lookee hyur! Don’t ye see them thur bruises on the grass?”

      “No.”

      “Durn it! thur plain es the nose on a Jew’s face. Thur’s a big shoe, an a little un clost aside o’ it. Thet’s the way they’ve rud off, which show that they hain’t follered the wild maars no further than hyur. We’d better keep on arter them?”

      “By all means!”

      Without further parley, Zeb started along the new trail; which, though still undiscernible to the eye of the other, was to him as conspicuous as he had figuratively declared it.

      In a little while it became visible to his companion—on their arrival at the place where the fugitives had once more urged their horses into a gallop to escape from the cavallada, and where the shod tracks deeply indented the turf.

      Shortly after their trail was again lost—or would have been to a scrutiny less keen than that of Zeb Stump—among the hundreds of other hoof-marks seen now upon the sward.

      “Hilloo!” exclaimed the old hunter, in some surprise at the new sign. “What’s been a doin’ hyur? This air some ’at kewrious.”

      “Only the tracks of the wild mares!” suggested Calhoun. “They appear to have made a circuit, and come round again?”

      “If they hev it’s been arter the others rud past them. The chase must a changed sides, I reck’n.”

      “What do you mean, Mr Stump?”

      “That i’stead o’ them gallupin’ arter the maars, the maars hev been gallupin’ arter them.”

      “How can you tell that?”

      “Don’t ye see that the shod tracks air kivered by them o’ the maars? Maars—no! By the ’turnal airthquake!—them’s not maar-tracks. They air a inch bigger. Thur’s been studs this way—a hul cavayurd o’ them. Geehosofat! I hope they hain’t—”

      “Haven’t what?”

      “Gone arter Spotty. If they hev, then thur will be danger to Miss Peintdexter. Come on!”

      Without waiting for a rejoinder, the hunter started off at a shambling trot, followed by Calhoun, who kept calling to him for an explanation of his ambiguous words.

      Zeb did not deign to offer any—excusing himself by a backward sweep of the hand, which seemed to say, “Do not bother me now: I am busy.”

      For a time he appeared absorbed in taking up the trail of the shod horses—not so easily done, as it was in places entirely obliterated by the thick trampling of the stallions. He succeeded in making it out by piecemeal—still going on at a trot.

      It was not till he had arrived within a hundred yards of the arroyo that the serious shadow disappeared from his face; and, checking the pace of his mare, he vouchsafed the explanation once more demanded from him.

      “Oh! that was the danger,” said Calhoun, on hearing the explanation. “How do you know they have escaped it?”

      “Look thur!”

      “A dead horse! Freshly killed, he appears? What does that prove?”

      “That the mowstanger hes killed him.”

      “It frightened the others off, you think, and they followed no further?”

      “They follered no further; but it wa’n’t adzackly thet as scared ’em off. Thur’s the thing as kep them from follerin’. Ole Hickory, what a jump!”

      The speaker pointed to the arroyo, on the edge of which both riders had now arrived.

      “You don’t suppose they leaped it?” said Calhoun. “Impossible.”

      “Leaped it clur as the crack o’ a rifle. Don’t ye see thur toe-marks, both on this side an the t’other? An’ Miss Peintdexter fust, too! By the jumpin’ Geehosofat, what a gurl she air sure enuf! They must both a jumped afore the stellyun war shot; else they kedn’t a got at it. Thur’s no other place whar a hoss ked go over. Geeroozalem! wa’n’t it cunnin’ o’ the mowstanger to throw the stud in his tracks, jest in the very gap?”

      “You think that he and my cousin crossed here together?”

      “Not adzackly thegither,” explained Zeb, without suspecting the motive of the interrogatory. “As I’ve sayed, Spotty went fust. You see the critter’s tracks yonner on t’other side?”

      “I do.”

      “Wal—don’t ye see they air kivered wi’ them o’ the mowstanger’s hoss?”

      “True—true.”

      “As for the stellyuns, they hain’t got over—ne’er a one o’ the hul cavayurd. I kin see how it hez been. The young fellur pulled up on t’other side, an sent a bullet back inter this brute’s karkidge. ’Twar jest like closin’ the gap ahint him; an the pursooers, seein’ it shet, guv up the chase, an scampered off in a different direckshun. Thur’s the way they hev gone—up the side o’ the gully!”

      “They may have crossed at some other place, and continued the pursuit?”

      “If they dud, they’d hev ten mile to go, afore they ked git back hyur—five up, an five back agin. Not a bit o’ that, Mister Calhoun. To needn’t be uneezy ’bout Miss Lewaze bein’ pursooed by them any further. Arter the jump, she’s rud off along wi’ the СКАЧАТЬ