And once more, from all, the testimony was
as before. There was not a clue to the disappearance, nor the semblance
of a clue. As out of the darkness of night surrounding, a great horned
owl swoops down upon its prey, and as mysteriously disappears, so the
Indian had come and gone; and satisfied at last, irresistibly awed as
well into an unwonted quiet, one by one, as they had arrived, the
ranchers dispersed--and the search was over.
And to this day that disappearance remains a mystery unsurmountable. One
morning a week later, after Mead and O'Reilly had gone, when the new
master of the ranch arose it was to find a wicked-looking mouse-coloured
cayuse standing motionless by the stable door. Upon him was neither
saddle nor bridle nor mark of any kind. Somewhere out on that limitless
waste he had been released, and, true to an unerring homing instinct, he
had returned; but from where no man could do more than speculate. He
could not speak, and his rider was seen no more. Somewhere out there
amid that same solitude a thing of mystery had come to pass; but what it
was only Nature and Nature's God, who alone were witness, could ever
know.
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