ck volume of smoke issued either from its
mouth or the top of its head, while it was drawing behind it a sort of
carriage, in which a single man was seated, who appeared to control
the movements of the extraordinary being in front of him.

No wonder that something like superstitious have filled the breasts of
the two men who had ceased hunting for gold, for a few minutes, to
view the singular apparition; for such a thing had scarcely been
dreamed of at that day, by the most imaginative philosophers; much
less had it ever entered the head of these two men on the western
prairies.

'Begorrah, but it's the ould divil, hitched to his throttin 'waging,
wid his ould wife howlding the reins!' exclaimed Mickey, who had
scarcely removed his eyes from the singular object.

'That there critter in the wagon is a man,' said Hopkins, looking as
intently in the same direction. 'It seems to me,' he added, a moment
later, 'that there's somebody else a-sit-ting alongside of him, either
a dog or a boy. Wal, naow, ain't that queer?'

'Begorrah! begorrah! do ye hear that? What shall we do?'

At that instant, a shriek like that of some agonized giant came home
to them across the plains, and both looked around, as if about to flee
in terror; but the curiosity of the Yankee restrained him. His
practical eye saw that whatever it might be, it was a human
contrivance, and there could be nothing supernatural about it.

'Look!'

Just after giving its ear-splitting screech, it turned straight toward
the two men, and with the black smoke rapidly puffing from the top of
its head, came tearing along at a tremendous rate.

Mickey manifested some nervousness, but he was restrained by the
coolness of Ethan, who kept his position with his eye fixed keenly
upon it.

Coming at such a railroad speed, it was not long in passing the
intervening space. It was yet several hundred yards distant, when
Ethan Hopkins gave Mickey a ringing slap upon the shoulder.

'Jerusalem! who do ye s'pose naow, that man is sitting in the carriage
and holding the reins?'

'Worrah, worrah! why do you ax me, whin I'm so frightened entirely
that I don't know who I am myself?'

'Its Baldy.'

'Git out!' replied the Irishman, but added the next moment, 'am I
shlaping or dhraming? It's Baldy or his ghost.'

It certainly was no ghost, judging from the manner in which it acted;
for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and
the two reins in his hands