If our horses shied at the smell of men whom they could not see, they were evidently well enough accustomed to the snap of firearms, for beyond a quick snort they paid no heed. As for me, I found then that I had been a deal more upset by this meeting than I had permitted myself to believe; and my nerves must have been terribly strung, for no sooner had they fallen than I shuddered throughout my body, so that I must have looked like one suffering from St. Vitus dance. Apache Kid looked at me with a queer, pained expression on his face, scrutinising me keenly and quickly and then looking away. And into the wavering light of the burning stumps came Donoghue, with his rifle lying in the crook of his arm, right up to us and began speaking. No, I cannot call it speaking. There was no word intelligible. His eyes were the eyes of a sober man, but when he spoke to us not a word could we distinguish, and he seemed aware of that himself, spluttering painfully and putting his hand to his mouth now and again, as with a sort of anger at himself and his condition. Then suddenly, as though remembering something, away he went through the timber the way he had come. "Fancy being killed by that!" said Apache Kid, wetting his lips with his tongue, and a sick look on his face. "What’s wrong with him?" said I. "Drunk," said he, and never a word more. But he followed Donoghue, to where stood a horse, the reins hitched to a tree. "That’s a tough looking mount he’s got," said Apache Kid, and then, like an afterthought: "Try to forget about those two fellows lying there," he added to me. I looked at him in something of an emotion very nigh horror. "Have they to lie there till—till they are found?" "Yes," said he, "by the wolves to-night—if the light of the stumps doesn’t keep them off. Failing that, to-morrow—by the buzzards." I looked round then, scarcely aware of the movement, and there, between the trees, I saw the clearing with the smouldering, twinkling stumps. The leader of these two lay with his back and his heels and the broad soles of his feet toward me; but the other, "the hog from Ontario," lay looking after us, with his dead eyes and his face lighting and shadowing, lighting up and shadowing pitifully in that ghastly glow. I turned round no more. I breathed in relief when we came clear of the forest into the open, sandy ground; but when I saw the stars thick in the sky, Orion, Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major, the tears welled in my eyes; they seemed so far from the terrors of that place. "I ’ll wait till you mount," said Apache Kid, holding my horse’s head while I gathered the reins. When I raised my foot to the stirrup the beast swerved; but at the third try I got in my foot, and with a spring gained the high saddle.