this?"

Were the question addressed to his, comrades, they could not answer it;
though none of them share his astonishment, or can tell what is causing
it. All they know is that two men are in their midst, one white, the
other a mulatto, but who either is they have not the slightest idea.
They see that the white man is a handsome young fellow--evidently a
gentleman--bestriding a steed which some of them already regard with
covetous glances; while he on the mule has the bearing of a
body-servant.

None of them has ever met or seen Clancy before, nor yet the fugitive
slave. Their leader alone knows the first, too much of him, though
nothing of the last. But no matter about the man of yellow skin. He
with the white one is his chief concern.

Recovering from his first surprise, he turns his thoughts towards
solving the enigma. He is not long before reaching its solution. He
remembers that the newspaper report said: "the body of the murdered man
has not been found." Ergo, Charles Clancy hasn't been killed after all;
for there he is, alive, and life-like as any man among them; mounted
upon a steed which Jim Borlasse remembers well--as well as he does his
master. To forget the animal would be a lapse of memory altogether
unnatural. There are weals on the robber's back,--a souvenir of
chastisement received for stealing that horse,--scars cicatrised, but
never to be effaced.

Deeper still than the brand on his body has sunk the record into his
soul. He was more than disappointed--enraged--on hearing that Richard
Darke had robbed him of a premeditated vengeance. For he knew Clancy
was again returning to Texas, and intended taking it on his return.
Now, discovering he has not been forestalled, seeing his prosecutor
there, unexpectedly in his power, the glance he gives to him is less
like that of man than demon.

His followers take note that there is a strangeness in his manner, but
refrain from questioning him about it. He seems in one of his moods,
when they know it is not safe to intrude upon, or trifle with him. In
his belt he carries a "Colt," which more than once has silenced a too
free-speaking subordinate.

Having surrounded the two strangers, in obedience to his gesture, they
await further instructions how to deal with them.

His first impulse is to make himself known to Clancy; then indulge in an
ebullition of triumph over his prisoner. Put a thought restraining him,
he resolves to preserve his inc