And that at which I stared was--a skeleton hand.

Every bone a grayish black, sharply silhouetted, clean as some master surgeon's specimen, it was extended as though clutching at--clutching at--what was that toward which it was reaching?
Again the icy prickling over scalp and skin--for its talons stretched out to grasp a steed that Death himself might have ridden, a rack whose bare skull hung drooping upon bent vertebrae.
I raised my hands to my face to shut out the ghostly sight--and swiftly the clutching bony hand moved toward me--was before my eyes--touched me.
The cry that sheer horror wrested from me was strangled by realization.
And so acute was my relief, so reassuring was it to have in the midst of these mysteries some sane, understandable thing occur that I laughed aloud.
For the skeleton hand was my own.

The mournful ghastly mount of death was--our pony.

And when I looked again I knew what I would see--and see them I did--two tall skeletons, skulls resting on their bony arms, leaning against the frame of the beast.
While ahead of us, floating poised upon the surface of the glistening cube, were two women skeletons--Ruth and Norhala! Weird enough was the sight.

Dureresque, grimly awful as materialization of a scene of the Dance Macabre--and yet--vastly comforting.
For here was something which was well within the range of human knowledge.