This time there was no lady in an automobile.
It was high noon when he awoke, for the sun had reached around the sage-brush, and was pouring full into his face.

He was very uncomfortable, and moreover an uneasy sense of something wrong pervaded his mind.

Had he or had he not, heard a strange, low, sibilant, writhing sound just as he came to consciousness?
Why did he feel that something, some one, had passed him but a moment before?
He rubbed his eyes open, and fanned himself with his hat.

There was not a sound to be heard save a distant hawk in the heavens, and the breathing of the horses.

He stepped over, and made sure that they were all right, and then came back.