Ghost Canyon. John Russell Fearn
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Terry again dismounted, and the girl sat and watched him as he inspected the dusty hard-baked ground in the moonlight. Unsatisfied, he thumbed a lucifer into a brief glimmer, cupping it in his hands and peering at the ground. As the light extinguished he gave a chuckle.
“What?” the girl asked, as he came over to her.
“Just the fact that those horses have very material shoes,” he replied. “Real ghosts wouldn’t leave footmarks behind, I guess. Anyways, let’s see where we can go by following this canyon.”
“I can tell you that right now. It leads straight out to the mesa. After that, there’s nothing until the next town of Luna Mucho.”
“We’ll go, anyway,” Terry decided, and swung back into the saddle. This time he went first, his gun ready, Hilda coming up behind him. As he went, Terry watched the surroundings carefully. Once beyond the bend in the canyon down which the horsemen had vanished, the canyon walls came inwards suddenly, until towards the centre of it there was room for perhaps only six horses abreast. From here the canyon widened out again and in ten minutes Terry found himself gazing at the moonlit expanse of the mesa, the canyon trail running down towards it like a zigzagged white ribbon.
“No sign of ’em now, anyway,” he said quietly. “I sort of thought there might be, out on the desert there. White against black. It would show.”
“Might,” Hilda muttered. “Unless they’re out of sight.”
They became silent. The mystery of the night had closed down again. It was queer the effect it had in these lonely spaces. Even with the physical evidence of horses’ hoofs, in the dust Terry somehow felt uncertain.…
Struck by a sudden thought, he ignited another lucifer and held it cupped in his palm as he dropped from the saddle. Hilda alighted beside him. He didn’t know quite what to think when he found there was no trail of hoofs except those of his own and the girl’s mount.
“But—it’s silly!” Hilda protested.
“Yeah. Course it is.” The lucifer dropped and expired in the dust. “They must have gone straight on because we know they didn’t turn back, just as we know they couldn’t have turned aside and gone upwards—not with these sheer walls.”
Terry looked about him. Three hundred foot high escarpments at this point. No vegetation, no rockery niches, no acclivities. Either the four horsemen must have gone upwards, or—?
“I don’t get it,” Terry confessed finally. “Better go back a bit and see if there’s any sign of their trail leading off to some place.”
Hilda nodded, and leading their horses, beside them, they returned along the canyon floor. The moon had risen high now. It was possible to see the dust at their feet and the prints their own mounts had made on the previous journey. And presently they came again to the spot where the prints of a whole party of horses had been tramping.
“But look—!” the girl almost whispered, pointing in the moonlight; and Terry flared another lucifer just to make sure.
He couldn’t explain what he saw. It was next to uncanny. The trail of the four horses was mixed with the trail of his own and the girl’s horse but, whereas the trail of his and Hilda’s mounts went straight on, the others stopped short. Up to a certain point they were clear enough, then, without turning aside, they simply ceased to be.
“Sure is tarnation queer,” Terry breathed, as the lucifer died out. “Narrowest part of the canyon, too, where there’s no room to move to one side. An’ I guess these walls are so steep nothin’ could get up ’em. Smooth as a lake, I guess.”
The girl looked at him in the moonlight and said nothing. He knew just what she was thinking.
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