yes are not on him,
all being turned to the two men who have issued out of the cabin and are
coming on towards the spot where they have pulled up.

Several of them have already recognised their old comrade, and in
hurried speech communicate the fact to the others.

"Walt Wilder!" are the words that leap from a dozen pairs of lips, while
they, pronouncing the name with glances aghast, look as if a spectre had
suddenly appeared to them.

An apparition, however, that is welcome; altogether different to the
impression it has produced upon their guide.

Meanwhile, Wilder advances to meet them; as he comes on, keeping up a
fire of exclamatory phrases, addressed to Hamersley, who is close
behind.

"Air this chile awake, or only dreaming? Look thar, Frank! That's Ned
Haynes, my old captin'. An' thar's Nat Cully, an' Jim Buckland. Durn
it, thar's the hul strenth o' the kumpany."

Walt is now close to their horses' heads, and the rangers, assured it is
himself and not his ghost, are still stricken with surprise. Some of
them turn towards the Mexican for explanation. They suppose him to have
lied in his story about their old comrade having been closed up in a
cave, though with what motive they cannot guess. The man's appearance
does not make things any clearer. He still stands affrighted,
trembling, and repeating his Paternosters. But now in changed tone, for
his fear is no longer of the supernatural. Reason reasserting itself,
he has given up the idea of disembodied spirits, convinced that the two
figures coming forward are real flesh and blood; the same whose blood he
assisted in spilling, and whose flesh he lately believed to be decaying
in the obscurity of a cave. He stands appalled as ever; no more with
unearthly awe, but the fear of an earthly retribution--a terrible one,
which he is conscious of having provoked by the cruel crime in which he
participated.

Whatever his fears and reflections they are not for the time intruded
upon. The rangers, after giving a glance to him, turn to the two men
who are now at their horses' heads; and, springing from their saddles,
cluster around them with questions upon their tongues and eager
expectations in their eyes.

The captain and Cully are the two first who interrogate.

"Can we be sure it's you, Walt?" is the interrogatory put by his old
officer. "Is it yourself?"

"Darn me ef I know, cap. Jess now I ain't sure o' anythin', arter
what's passed. Specially m