When the moon arose he again examined the body, and took from its clothing a few articles of identification and some papers of formality and precision, which he vaguely conjectured to be some law papers from their resemblance to the phrasing of sheriffs’ and electors’ notices which he had seen in the papers.  He then buried the corpse in a shallow trench, which he dug by the light of the moon.  He had no question of responsibility; his pioneer training had not included coroners’ inquests in its experience; in giving the body a speedy and secure burial from predatory animals he did what one frontiersman would do for another—­what he hoped might be done for him.  If his previous unaccountable feelings returned occasionally, it was not from that; but rather from some uneasiness in regard to his late guest’s possible feelings, and a regret that he had not been here at the finding of the body.  That it would in some way have explained his own accident he did not doubt.

The boat did not “slow up” the next night, but passed as usual; yet three or four days elapsed before he could look forward to its coming with his old extravagant and half-exalted curiosity—­which was his nearest approach to imagination.  He was then able to examine it more closely, for the appearance of the stranger whom he now began to call “his friend” in his verbal communings with himself—­but whom he did not seem destined to again discover; until one day, to his astonishment, a couple of fine horses were brought to his clearing by a stock-drover.  They had been “ordered” to be left there.  In vain Morse expostulated and questioned.

“Your name’s Martin Morse, ain’t it?” said the drover, with business brusqueness; “and I reckon there ain’t no other man o’ that name around here?”

“No,” said Morse.

“Well, then, they’re yours.”

“But who sent them?” insisted Morse.  “What was his name, and where does he live?”

“I didn’t know ez I was called upon to give the pedigree o’ buyers,” said the drover dryly; “but the horses is ‘Morgan,’ you can bet your life.”  He grinned as he rode away.

That Captain Jack sent them, and that it was a natural prelude to his again visiting him, Morse did not doubt, and for a few days he lived in that dream.  But Captain Jack did not come.  The animals were of great service to him in “rounding up” the stock he now easily took in for pasturage, and saved him the necessity of having a partner or a hired man.  The idea that this superior gentleman in fine clothes might ever appear to him in the former capacity had even flitted through his brain, but he had rejected it with a sigh.  But the thought that, with luck and industry, he himself might, in course of time, approximate to Captain Jack’s evident station, did occur to him, and was an incentive to energy.  Yet it was quite distinct from the ordinary working man’s ambition of wealth and state.  It was only that it might make him more worthy of his friend.  The great world was still as it had appeared to him in the passing boat—­a thing to wonder at—­to be above—­and to criticize.