oken,
and its fellow bored with an ounce of lead. I have swum from a sinking
ship, and have fallen upon the battle-field. I have looked at the
muzzles of a hundred muskets aimed at my person, at less than thirty
yards' distance, and felt the certainty of death though the volley was
fired, and I still live.

Well, you will no doubt acknowledge these to be perils. Do not mistake
me; I am not boasting of having encountered them; I met them with more
or less courage--some of them with fear--but if the fears inspired by
all were combined into one emotion of terror, it would not equal in
intensity that which I experienced at the moment I pulled up my horse
upon the prairie.

I have never been given to superstition; perhaps my religion is not
strong enough for that; but at that moment I could not help yielding to
a full belief in the supernatural. There was no _natural_ cause--I
could think of none--that would account for the mysterious disappearance
of the horse. I had often sneered at the credulous sailor and his
phantom-ship; had I lived to look upon a phenomenon equally strange yet
true--a phantom-horse?

The hunters and trappers had indeed invested the white steed with this
character; their stories recurred to my memory at the moment. I had
used to smile at the simple credulity of the narrators. I was now
prepared to believe them. They were true!

Or was I dreaming? Was it not all a dream? The search for the white
steed--the surround--the chase--the long, long gallop?

For some moments I actually fancied that such _might_ be the case; but
soon my consciousness became clear again: I was in the saddle, and my
panting, smoking steed was under me. That was real and positive. I
remembered all the incidents of the chase. They, too, were real of a
certainty; the white steed had been there: he was gone. The trappers
spoke the truth. The horse was a phantom!

Oppressed with this thought--which had almost become a conviction--I sat
in my saddle, bent and silent, my eyes turned upon the earth, but their
gaze fixed on vacuity. The lazo had dropped from my fingers, and the
bridle-reins trailed untouched over the withers of my horse.

My belief in the supernatural was of short duration, how long I know
not, for during its continuance I remained in a state of bewilderment.

My senses at length returned. My eyes had fallen upon a fresh
hoof-print on the turf, directly in front of me. I knew it was that
made by