t.

Then his heart sank lower yet, for the man's face was as white as the
snow beyond. There were no features; neither nose, nor mouth, nor
eyebrows, only a pair of black eyes gleamed out of that dead-white face.

Carl clutched at the horn of his saddle to keep from falling, he was so
frightened.

"Vot it is?" he kept repeating to himself.

His pony stopped of its own volition directly in front of this black
apparition, and Carl swayed in his saddle and would have fallen out of
it had he not clung to it with the unconscious strength of despair.

"Iss dot you, Follansbee?" asked Carl, in a weak, thin voice, well
knowing that it was not his line partner, but trying to break the spell
of fear that held him.

There was no reply, but the gleaming black eyes never left his own, nor
did the figure on the horse move a hair's breadth.

"Vy don't you say someding?" said Carl, his voice sounding like the
piping noise of the wind through a keyhole. "Speak someding."

Then it suddenly struck Carl that the man could not speak, because in
that white, immovable face there was no mouth to speak with, only those
black, blazing eyes.

"If you can't speak, make motionings," said Carl, in an imploring voice.

The sinister figure on the black horse slowly raised his arm, and
motioned Carl toward him, at the same time swinging his black horse
around and riding toward the mountains.

Chilled to the heart, Carl obeyed the signal, and sent his pony forward.

The man, apparition, demon, or whatever it was, sent his horse into a
gallop, and Carl, with no volition on his own part, followed at the same
speed.

But with the black and menacing eyes of the man with the dead face away
from his own, some small part of courage oozed back into Carl again, and
he remembered Ted's injunction to question every stranger met on the
range, and if he did not give a satisfactory answer to drive him off.

But Carl had not got over the fright the sight of that face and eyes had
thrown him into.

Suddenly his hand came into contact with the handle of his six-shooter,
and a thrill of daring ran through him.

He looked ahead at the back of the man riding only a few feet in advance
of him.

Should he take the chance? He knew that Ted or Bud or any of the boys
would do so. Why not he?

If the man was only human a bullet would soon settle the matter. But if
he should be a ghost or an emissary of the devil, as Carl strongly
suspected, nothing like a