A PHANTOM HOESEMAN. 59 



came that was interesting enough, and decided our imme- 

 diate start. 



The one o'clock relief was made as usual, and also the 

 report, equally as usual : " All quiet : nothing happened." 

 We were getting tired of this regular song of " All quiet," 

 &c. ; it had become a byword. The night was clear, but 

 raw. A mist had crept up from the river, rolled across 

 the valley, and settled in and over its depressions and 

 hollows, making the higher portions of the ground look 

 like low islands in a ghostly sea. The moon was still up, 

 considerably to the west of south, and she threw a flood of 

 light down the valley. It was a cloudless night, and the 

 silvery mist, the bright moonlight, the dim shadowy distance, 

 gave a vague poetic look to the whole scene. 



The regular nightly serenade was too familiar to receive 

 attention, and an hour had passed uneventfully away, 

 when a dim and distant object emerged from a veil of 

 mist far up the valley. As this object approached it began 

 to resolve itself into a resemblance of some large moving 

 animal ; then it was lost to view ; anon it appeared 

 again ; larger, a little less like a fancy of the brain ; and 

 again it was lost. When it emerged once more it looked 

 like a phantom horseman coming at a swinging canter. 

 As it neared it became more and still more distinct. 

 Suddenly it stopped, went on again at a walk, broke into 

 a canter, slackened into a trot, and dropped into a walk 

 again. Its motions looked very much like those of a man 

 on horseback tracking an easily-followed trail. As it got 

 still nearer, all doubts vanished, and on its arrival abreast 

 of camp where the different trails we had made going 



