So closely was that phantom
located by the sense of smell that it seemed to Alcatraz he could see
the exact spot on the hillside behind a small rock where the ghost
must lie. Yet he disdained to flee from empty air and for all his
beating heart he raised his head and walked sedately on. The danger
spot was drifting past on his left when a squeal of fear from the
wild grey far in the rear made Alcatraz leap sidewise with catlike
suddenness.
Growing by magic from the sand behind the little rock the head and
shoulders of a man appeared, his shadow pouring down the sun-whitened
slope. In his hand he swung a rapidly lengthening loop of rope and as
his arm went back it knocked off the fellow's hat and exposed a shock
of red hair. So much Alcatraz saw while the paralysis of fear locked
every joint for the tenth part of a second, and deeply as he dreaded
the apparition itself he dreaded more the whipping circle of rope.
For had he not seen the dead thing become alive and snakelike in the
skilled hand of Manuel Cordova? The freezing terror relaxed; the sand
crunched away under the drive of his rear hoofs as he flung himself
forward--with firm footing to aid he would have slid from beneath the
flying danger, but as it was he heard the live rope whisper in the air
above his head.
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