I have encountered dangers--not a few--but they were the ordinary perils
of flood and field, and I understood them. I have had one limb broken,
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 the white steed, and this awoke me to a process of reasoning.
Had the horse been a phantom, he could not have made a track. I had
never heard of the track of a ghost; though a _horse-ghost_ might be
different from the common kind!
My reflections on this head ended in the determination to follow the
trail as far as it should lead; of course to the point where the steed
must have mounted into the air, or evaporated--the scene of his
apotheosis.
With this resolve, I gathered my reins, and rode forward upon the trail,
keeping my eyes fixed upon the hoof-prints.
The line was direct, and I had ridden nearly two hundred yards, when my
horse came to a sudden stop. I looked out forward to discover the cause
of his halting; with that glance vanished my new-born superstitions.
At the distance of some thirty paces, a dark line was seen upon the
prairie, running transversely to the course I was following. It
appeared to be a narrow crack in the plain; but on spurring nearer, it
proved to be a fissure of considerable width--one of those formations
known throughout Spanish America as _barrancas_. The earth yawned, as
though rent by an earthquake; but water had evidently something to do
with the formation of the chasm. It was of nearly equal width at top
and bottom, and its bed was covered with a _debris_ of rocks rounded by
attrition. Its sides were perfectly vertical, and the stratification,
even to the surface-turf, exactly corresponded--thus rendering it
invisible at the distance of but a few paces from its brink. It
appeared to shallow to the right, and no doubt ended not far off in that
direction. Towards the left, on the contrary, I could see that it
became deeper and wider. At the point where I had reached it, its
bottom was nearly twenty feet from the surface of the prairie.
Of course, the disappearance of the white steed was no longer a mystery.
He had made a fearful leap--nearly twenty feet sheer! There was the
torn turf on the brink of the chasm, and the displacement of the loose
stones, where he had bounded into its bed. He had gone to the left--
down the barranca. The abrasion of his hoofs was visible upon the
rocks.
I looked down the defile: he was not to be seen. The barranca turned
off by an angle at no great distance. He had already passed round the
angle, and was out of sight!
It was clear that he had escaped; that to fellow would be of no use;
and, with this reflection, I abandoned all thoughts of carrying the
chase farther.
After giving way to a pang or two of disappointment, I began to think of
the position in which I had placed myself. It is true I was now
relieved from the feeling of awe that, but a moment before, had
oppressed me; but my situation was far from being a pleasant one. I was
at least thirty miles from the rancheria, and I could not tell in what
direction it lay. The sun was setting, and therefore I had the points
of the compass; but I had not the slightest idea whether we had ridden
eastward or westward after leaving the settlements. I might ride back
on my own trail; _perhaps_ I might: it was a doubtful point. Neither
through the timber, nor on the open prairie, had the chase gone in a
direct line. Moreover, I noticed in many places, as we glided swiftly
along, that the turf was cut up by numerous hoof-tracks: droves of
mustangs had passed over the ground. It would be no easy matter for me
to retrace the windings of that long gallop.
One thing was evident: it would be useless for me to make the attempt
before morning. There was not half-an-hour of sun left, and at night
the trail could not be followed. I had no alternative but to remain
where I was until another day should break.
But how remain? I was hungry; still worse, I was choking with thirst.
Not a drop of water was near; I had seen none for twenty miles. The
long hot ride had made me thirsty to an unusual degree, and my poor
horse was in a similar condition. The knowledge that no water was near
added, as it always does, to the agony, and rendered the physical want
more difficult to be endured.
I scanned the bottom of the barranca, and tracked it with my eye as far
as I could see: it was waterless as the lain itself. The rocks rested
upon dry sand and gravel; not a drop of the wished-for element appeared
within its bed, although it was evident that at some time a torrent must
have swept along its channel.
After some reflection, it occurred to me that by following the barranca
_downward_, I might find water; at least, this was the most likely
direction in which to search for it. I rode forward, therefore,
directing my horse along the edge of the chasm.
The fissure deepened as I advanced, until, at the distance of a mile
from where I first struck it, the gulf yawned full fifty feet into the
plain, the sides still preserving their vertical steepness!
The sun had now gone down; the twilight promised to be a short one. I
dared not traverse that plain in the darkness; I might ride over the
precipitous edge of the barranca. Besides, it was not the only one: I
saw there were others--smaller ones--the beds of tributary streams in
seasons of rain. These branched off diagonally or at right angles, and
were more or less deep and steep.
Night was fast closing over the prairie; I dared not ride farther amid
these perilous abysms. I must soon come to a halt, without finding
water. I should have to spend the long hours without relief. The
prospect of such a night was fearful.
I was still riding slowly onward, mechanically conducting my horse, when
a bright object fell under my eyes, causing me to start in my saddle
with an exclamation of joy. It was the gleam of water. I saw it in a
westerly direction, the direction in which I was going.
It proved to be a small lake, or--in the phraseology of the country--a
pond. It was not in the bottom of the ravine, where I had hitherto been
looking for water, but up on the high prairie. There was no timber
around it, no sedge; its shores were without vegetation of any kind, and
its surface appeared to correspond with the level of the plain itself.
I rode towards it with joyful anticipation, yet not without some
anxiety. Was it a _mirage_? It might be--often had I been deceived by
such appearances. But no: it had not the filmy, gauze-like halo that
hangs over the mirage. Its outlines were sharply defined by the prairie
turf, and the last lingering rays of the sun glistened upon its surface.
It _was_ water!
Fully assured of this, I rode forward at a more rapid rate.
I had arrived within about two hundred paces of the spot--still keeping
my eyes fixed upon the glistening water--when all at once my horse
started, and drew back! I looked ahead to discover the cause. The
twilight had nearly passed, but in the obscurity I could still
distinguish the surface of the prairie. The barranca again frowned
before me, running transversely across my path. To my chagrin, I
perceived that the chasm had made a sudden turn, and that the pond was
on its _opposite side_!