CHAPTER I. LASSITER


A sharp clip-crop of iron-shod hoofs deadened and died away, and clouds of 
yellow dust drifted from under the cottonwoods out over

I, a poor scrivener

sage

it has no likeness to the beasts of earth, to the creatures of air and water

She wanted the sleepy quiet pastoral days to last always

It was impossible to surmise their actual appearance, for, even as the 
taverner had hinted, their very hands were concealed by fingerless gloves; 
and the purple gowns came down in loose folds that trailed about their feet 
like unwinding cerecloths. There was a horror about them, of which the 
macabre masks were only a lesser element; a horror that lay partly in their 
unnatural, crouching attitudes, and the beastlike agility with which they 
moved, unhampered by their cumbrous habiliments

Tull put out a groping hand. The life of his eyes dulled to the gloom with 
which men of his fear saw the approach of death. But death, while it hovered 
over him, did not descend, for the rider waited for the twitching fingers, 
the downward flash of hand that did not come. Tull, gathering himself 
together, turned to the horses, attended by his pale comrades.


*


CHAPTER II. COTTONWOODS


Venters appeared too deeply moved to speak the gratitude his face expressed.

Among them, they carried a curious bier, made from interwoven strips of 
leather, and with monstrous bones that served for frame and handles. The 
leather was greasy and blackened as if from long years of mortuary use.

"Some men once roped an' tied him, an' th

I have never acquired the diary-keeping habit — mainly, because of my 
uneventful, mode of existence, in which there has seldom been anything to 
chronicle

held white-iron close to his eyes."

Loath were the fishers to touch the dead men

somewhere a robin sang its evening song, and on the still air floated the 
freshness and murmur of flowing water

Naught but the raiment of the marble corpses had been consumed; and they 
shone white as moon-washed marble above the charrings of wood; and nowhere 
upon them was there any blackness from the fire

specters, and they, too, melted into the night.


*


CHAPTER III. AMBER SPRING


No unusual circumstances was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit 
Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the 
dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing.

My name is Pharpetron, among those who have known me in Poseidonis; but even 
I, the last and most forward pupil of the wise Avyctes, know not the name of 
that which I am fated to become ere to-morrow.

unusual circumstances was it for Oldring a

No unusual circumstances was it for Oldring and some of his men to visit 
Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for him to prowl about in the 
dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant that mischief was brewing.

d some of his men to visit Cottonwoods in the broad light of day, but for 
him to prowl about in the dark with the hoofs of his horses muffled meant 
that mischief was brewing.

using ignorantly a dire formula;

"It's Judkins, your Gentile rider!" he cried. "Jane, when Judkins rides like 
that it means hell!"


*


CHAPTER IV. DECEPTION PASS


The rider thundered up and almost threw his foam-flecked horse in the sudden 
stop. He was a giant form, and with fearless eyes.

hapter iv. dece

Turning to regain his path, he crushed others of the toads to an abhorrent 
pulp under his feet. The marshy soil was alive with them. They flopped 
against him from the mist, striking his legs, his bosom, his very face with 
their clammy bodies.

tio

My poems have appeared in 30 or more magazines, in 10 or 12 anthologies; and 
some have even been used in school readers. I have done a number of 
translations from French poetry, amid have dabbled, rather ineptly no doubt, 
in the writing of French verse.

p

Venters sent him for meat, bread, and dried fruits, to be packed in 
saddlebags. His own horse he turned loose into the nearest corral. Then he 
went for Wrangle. The giant sorrel had earned his name for a trait the 
opposite of amiability.

Expansion and contraction of eye-pupil under light a test of obsession, 
since an obsessing or intruding spirit cannot secure control of the eye. 
(Rosicrucianism.)

The Masked Rider huddled over his pommel slowly swaying to one side, and 
then, with a faint, strange cry, slipped out of the saddle.

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