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It must have been about three o’clock, and we were lying upon our oars in an eddy formed by a clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer is a solitary, bright star in the distance, when the silence is broken by the “bow oar”:

“Light ahead.”

All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few seconds a twinkling light appears, shines steadily, and again disappears as if by the shifting position of some black object apparently drifting close upon us.

“Stern, all; a steamer!”

“Hold hard there! Steamer be damned!” is the reply of the coxswain. “It’s a house, and a big one too.”

It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a huge fragment of the darkness. The light comes from a single candle, which shines through a window as the great shape swings by. Some recollection is drifting back to me with it as I listen with beating heart.

“There’s someone in it, by heavens! Give way, boys–lay her alongside. Handsomely, now! The door’s fastened; try the window; no! here’s another!”

In another moment we are trampling in the water which washes the floor to the depth of several inches. It is a large room, at the farther end of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a blanket, holding a candle in one hand, and apparently absorbed in the book he holds with the other. I spring toward him with an exclamation:

“Joseph Tryan!”

He does not move. We gather closer to him, and I lay my hand gently on his shoulder, and say:

“Look up, old man, look up! Your wife and children, where are they? The boys–George! Are they here? are they safe?”

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!–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 further 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.