He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to mine, and we involuntarily recoil before his look. It is a calm and quiet glance, free from fear, anger, or pain; but it somehow sends the blood curdling through our veins. He bowed his head over his book again, taking no further notice of us. The men look at me compassionately and hold their peace. I make one more effort:— “Joseph Tryan, don’t you know me—the surveyor who surveyed your ranch,—the Espiritu Santo? Look up, old man!” He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his blanket. Presently he repeated to himself, “The surveyor who surveyed your ranch, Espiritu Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a lesson he was trying to fix in his memory. I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he suddenly caught me fearfully by the hand, and said:— “Hush!” We were silent. “Listen!” He puts his arm around my neck, and whispers in my ear, “I’m _a-moving off!_” “Moving off?” “Hush! Don’t speak so loud. Moving off! Ah! wot’s that? Don’t you hear?—there!—listen!” We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor. “It’s them wot he sent I—old Altascar sent. They’ve been here all night. I heard ’em first in the creek, when they came to tell the old man to move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. They whispered under the door, and I saw their eyes on the step,—their cruel, hard eyes. Ah! why don’t they quit?” I tell the men to search the room and see if they can find any farther traces of the family, while Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is so much like the figure I remember on the breezy night, that a superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me. When they have returned, I tell them briefly what I know of him, and the old man murmurs again,— “Why don’t they quit, then? They have the stock,—all gone—gone,—gone for the hides and hoofs,” and he groans bitterly. “There are other boats below us. The shanty cannot have drifted far, and perhaps the family are safe by this time,” says the coxswain hopefully. We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless, and carry him to the boat. He is still grasping the Bible in his right hand, though its strengthening grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers in the stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while a pale gleam in the sky shows the coming day. I was weary with excitement, and when we reached the steamer, and I had seen Joseph Tryan comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a blanket near the boiler and presently fell asleep. But even then the figure of the old man often started before me, and a sense of uneasiness about George made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams. I was awakened at about eight o’clock in the morning by the engineer, who told me one of the old man’s sons had been picked up and was now on board. “Is it George Tryan?” I ask quickly. “Don’t know; but he’s a sweet one, whoever he is,” adds the engineer, with a smile at some luscious remembrance. “You’ll find him for’ard.”