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.