"He did?" interposed the trapper; "he find it, when he has been here in the settlement less than a year, and knows little about the woods; and I, who have been here a dozen years, knew nothing about it? He never found it without help, and that, too, from the same character that let him know we were coming to his house, to-day. I tell you, the Old Boy is in that man!"

"Then we will hang him and the Old Boy with one rope," resumed the hunter, "for we are now sure of him."

"I hope so," said the sheriff; "but can he be taken to-night?"

"He might, possibly, if we were willing to run risks enough," replied the hunter, doubtfully. "But I should hardly think it advisable to make the attempt. He could not be drawn from the cave, if we made the onset; while, if we entered it, he could easily kill several of us before he could be secured."

"What shall be done, then?"

"I have been studying on that, and the best thing I can think of, is, to post men enough to guard him securely through the night; and then have on force enough in the morning to unburrow him, by some means or other, which we will contrive when the time comes."

"But will he not come down, to escape in his boat, to-night?"

"I rather expect not. After hearing the noise I made, and, then coupling it with my signal, which he will then be suspicious of, as well as of the sounds that most likely have reached or will reach his ears from some of our boats; after all this, he will, probably, be afraid of falling into a trap, and would prefer taking his chances of escape by daylight. But, if he should come down, I will arrange things so that we will have him, to a dead certainty."

The suggestions of the hunter were again adopted; and he was again requested to take the lead in putting the proposed plan into execution.

Accordingly, after directing the trapper to concentrate those stationed in their canoes above with those in one or two below, he entered the boat with the sheriff and his associate; and, taking an oar, slowly rowed along towards the place he had designated as the retreat of the desperate outlaw, on whose seizure they were so resolutely determined.

After reaching the spot, and waiting till the expected boat-crews arrived, the hunter quietly landed, and stationed two of the men in the narrow pass north of the gorge, with orders to keep a sharp lookout through the night, hail whoever might approach, and shoot him down before suffering him to escape. He next led two more up round the nearest approaches of the cave, and posted one on each side, a little above it, to prevent all possibility of escape over the rocks and ledges in that direction; and then, returning down to the shore, selected the trapper to occupy with him the southern pass to the gorge, thus reserving for himself, and the man on whom he believed he could best rely in an emergency, the post where an encounter would be most likely to occur. After completing these arrangements, and landing a pair of handcuffs from the sheriff's boat, he dismissed the officer to collect all the rest of the company, not thus retained, and return to the village for the night, and for a fresh rally the next morning.

It was now ten o'clock at night; and from that time, for the next six hours, the stillness and darkness of death brooded over the slumbering waters of the lake. The mute men on guard,—to whom the slowly-passing hours seemed doubly long and gloomy, from the oppressive sense of the duty of silence,—stood immovably at their posts, alternately employing themselves in guessing at the hour of the night, and intently listening to catch some sound which should indicate the presence of the dreaded object of their watch. But, through the whole night, no such sound or indication reached their strained senses; and most of them, at length, were brought to the belief that either he had never been there, or that he had, by some unknown means, effected his escape. The hunter, however, never for a moment permitted his faith to waver. He not only felt confident that Gaut was still in his dark cage in the rocks, but that, the next day, safe means would be found to uncage him, and deliver him over to hands of justice, to undergo the penalties of his crimes. And, as soon as the anxiously-awaited daylight began to make its appearance in the east, he began gradually to work his noiseless way into the mouth of the gorge, and then up over the steeps and ragged ledges, till he had gained a stand under cover of a tuft of clinging evergreens, where he could obtain an unobstructed view of the mouth of the cavern, some six rods above. Here, low crouched behind his bushy screen, with rifle cocked and levelled at the entrance, he lay, silently awaiting the approach of daylight, expecting that Gaut would then, at least, be peering out to ascertain the state of affairs on the shore below. And the event soon showed the correctness of his reasoning. As the brightening flushes of morning fell on the water, and began to throw the reflected light on the face of the mountain, so as to bring its darker recesses to view, the hunter's practised ear soon detected a movement within the cave; and presently the head, and then the shoulders, of the wary outlaw rose gradually in sight against the rocks, immediately over the low entrance.

"Yield yourself a prisoner, or die!" suddenly broke from the lips of the concealed hunter.

Gaut cast a startled glance around him, and then instantly threw himself to the ground, but barely in time to escape the bullet of the exploding rifle below, which struck the rock in the exact spot that a half-second before was darkened by the shade of his head and shoulders.

"Went through the hair on top of his head, I think, but missed his skull by something like an inch, probably," said the hunter, quickly gliding down a few feet over the edge of the shelf, where he lay so as to put a rock between him and the mouth of the cave. "But, on the whole, I am glad of it; for I had rather see him go by the hand of the hangman than my own."

The hunter then quietly reloaded his rifle, and went down among his excited companions; who, the ban of silence being now removed by his example, came forward to talk over this unexpected and startling incident of the morning, which had served the double purpose of demonstrating to the former that Gaut would never surrender himself a prisoner, and to the latter, the doubted fact that the object of their search was there, as represented to them the evening before. With the whole of them, indeed, the affair had now assumed a new aspect. Phillips and Codman put their heads together, and began to start and discuss various expedients for dislodging the intrenched fugitive; while the others, in their excitement and agitation, walked hurriedly about in their confined positions speaking or thinking of the desperate and dangerous struggle now likely soon to ensue in the attempted capture, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the sheriff and the additional force, which, it was understood, he would rally and bring on with him.

"They are coming!" at length cried one of the men from the cliff above; "they are coming in troops, and in all directions."

The men on shore now eagerly ran down to the farthest projecting rocks, or on fallen trees extending into the water, to obtain unobstructed views of the company thus announced to be approaching in the distance; when, instead of the few they had expected, they beheld a whole fleet of canoes emerging from the distant outlet below, and rowing with all speed towards them; while, at the same time, another company of boats was seen approaching from the settlement around the upper end of the lake.

It appeared that, when the sheriff with his attendants reached the village the evening before, and announced the exciting tidings that the desperate man, whom all were so intent on hunting down, had been driven to a stronghold among the rocks of the mountain up the lake, where it might require a large force to take him, men started off in all directions, and rode all night with the news; which, flying like wind over this and the adjoining settlements, threw the whole country, for thirty or forty miles around, into commotion, and put scores of bold men immediately on the march for the scene of action. And the upshot was that, by sunrise the next morning, more than fifty men, hurrying in from all quarters, had assembled at the village, and having appropriated all the boats on the rivers, for many miles above and below, had joined the company of the sheriff, and under his lead were now on their way to the great point of attraction; together with many others entering the lake from other quarters.

In a short time the long retinue of canoes came clustering to the shore; when the motley company, preceded by the sheriff and his immediate attendants, all landed, and, crowding around the hunter and his associates, listened, with many a half-suppressed exclamation, indicative of the deep excitement that agitated the mass, to the recital of the discoveries and incidents of the morning.

"I cannot believe," said the sheriff who had been listening with keen interest to the hunter's account of his bold but fruitless attempt to compel the submission of the desperado, "I cannot believe, after all, that the fellow will be so foolhardy as to persist in his refusal to surrender, when he knows there is now no longer any chance for him to escape. I will try him faithfully before resorting to extreme measures."

"That may be well enough, perhaps," remarked the hunter, demurely, feeling a little rebuked for his own hastiness in firing on the man, by some of the expressions of the officer; "yes, that will be well enough. But, if you succeed in drawing him out to be taken by means of words alone, I will try the experiment on the very next wolf or painter I drive into his den."

"Nevertheless, it shall be tried," returned the officer.

And accordingly, having called to his side a small band of well-armed assistants, he proceeded with them up the gorge, till he had gained the shelf which afforded the hunter a covert in the previous assault; when he stepped fearlessly out in full view of the mouth of the cavern, and, with a loud voice, calling the name of Gaut Gurley, "commanded him, in the name and by the authority of the State of New Hampshire, to come out and surrender himself a prisoner, to answer, in court, to the charges set forth in a warrant then ready to be produced."

The officer now paused; and all listened; but no sound came from the cave. The summons was then repeated, in a still louder and more determined tone of voice. And this time a sound, resembling the growl of a chafed tiger, was heard within, belching out a volley of muttered curses, and ending with the distinguishable words of defiance:

"If you want me, come and take me; and we will see who dies first."

"Your blood be on your own head, then, obstinate wretch!" exclaimed the excited officer. "Men, prepare to throw a volley of bullets into that cavern. Ready—aim—fire!"

The single report of a half-dozen exploding muskets instantly followed the word, ringing out and reverberating along the mountain like the shock of a field-piece; while, with the dying sound, a hoarse shout of derisive laughter from the cave greeted the ears of the awe-struck and shuddering company around.

"There is no use in that," said the hunter, who had followed and posted himself a little in the rear of the besieging party, under the apprehension that the besieged might make a rush out of his retreat, in the smoke and confusion consequent on the firing,—"there is no use in any thing of that kind. The entrance, after the first four or five feet, suddenly expands into quite a large space, into one of the corners of which he could easily step, as he doubtless did just now, and be safe against a regiment of rifles from without."

"Then we will smoke him out!" fiercely exclaimed the sheriff, recovering from his astonishment at finding the culprit had not been annihilated, and beginning to be enraged at seeing himself and his authority thus alike despised; "we will smoke him out, like a burrowed wild beast, and soon convince the scoffing villain that we are not to be foiled in this manner. Hillo, there, below! gather and bring up here at least a cartload of dry and green boughs."

With eager alacrity the throng below sprang to do the bidding of the officer; and, in a short time, they came clambering up the steeps, with their shouldered loads of mingled material, to the post occupied by the advanced party; who took, and, keeping as much as possible out of the range of the entrance, carried them up, and threw them over the next shelf on to the little level space lying around the mouth of the cavern. This process was briskly continued, till a pile as large as a haycock was raised against the upright ledge through which the cave opened by a low narrow mouth at the bottom. A fire was then struck, a pine knot kindled, and held ready for the intended application; when the sheriff, proclaiming to the desperate object of these fearful preparations what was in store for him, commanded him once more, and for the last time, to surrender. But, receiving no reply, he then, ordering the men to stand ready with poles to scatter the material the moment the victim should cry for mercy, seized the flaming brand and hurled it into the most combustible part of the pile before him.

Within the space of a minute the appearance of the quickly-catching blaze, now seen leaping in a thousand dimly-sparkling tongues of flame, from layer to layer and from, side to side, through the crevices of the loosely-packed mass, gave proof that the whole pile was becoming thoroughly ignited. And the next moment the cave, and the whole visible range of rocks above, were lost to sight in the dense cloud of smoke that deeply wrapt and rolled over them. Expecting every instant to hear the agonized cries of the victim, now seemingly enfolded in the very embrace of the terrible element, calling aloud for mercy and offering submission, the whole company, crowding the gorge below, or peering over from the surrounding cliffs, climbed for the purpose, stood for some time mute and appalled at the spectacle, and the thought of the fearful issue it involved. No sound or sight, however, except the crackling of the consuming fagots and the flaring sheet of the ascending flames, greeted their expectant senses.

"Pretty much as I have long thought it would turn out, in the end," said the trapper, the first to break the silence, as the fire was seen to be slacking away, without any thing yet being heard from the dreaded inmate of the cave. "His master is taking him off in a winding-sheet of smoke and flame. I shouldn't be surprised at a clap of thunder or an earthquake to wind up with."

"At any rate," observed another of the crowd, "he must be suffocated by this time."

"Yes," responded a third, "dead, dead as a door-nail; so, there is an end of the incarnate Beelzebub that we have known by the name of Gaut Gurley."

"I am not so clear about that," now interposed the hunter, who had stood intently watching the varying aspects of the fire and smoke about the cave. "I thought, myself, that this operation must put him on begging terms, if any thing would; and the question is, whether it wouldn't now, before he found himself in any danger of smothering. I don't understand it; but stay,—what is that rising from the top of the rocks, some distance back from the front of the den? Mr. Sheriff, do you see it?"

"See what, sir?"

"Why, that slender column of smoke rising gently out of the top of the rocks, directly over the cave, and growing more visible every moment, as the smoke from the fire down here in front becomes light and thin in the clear blaze."

"I do see what appears, here, to be something of the kind not proceeding directly from the fire;—yes, plainly, now. What does it mean, Mr. Phillips?"

"It means that the rascal has a chimney to his house, or what, for his safety, is the same. The rocks forming the top of the cavern are piled up so loosely that the smoke rises through them almost as easy and natural as from a chimney. He had nothing to do but to throw himself on the bottom, to be out of its way, and breathe as good air as the best of us."

"By Heavens, Phillips, I believe you are right! And that is not all there is to it, either: if our smoking-out experiment has failed, it has shown a better one. The same looseness of the rocks that permitted the escape of the smoke so freely, will permit, also, their being removed or torn away. We will now uncage him by digging down into his den. Ho there! my merry men below, go to cutting heavy pry-poles, and look up your crow-bars, picks, sledge-hammers, and shovels. There is work for you all."

As soon as the unexpected discoveries which had led to these new orders, and consequent change of the whole plan of attack, were understood and fully comprehended by all, the solemn and revolting character of the scene was instantly converted into one of bustle and animation. As the plan thus indicated by the sheriff required the scene, of operations to be transferred to the top of the rocks above the cave, to which there was no means of access from the gorge in front, he, leaving a strong guard in the pass now occupied, took the hunter and came down to the shore; when the latter, followed by the officer and a score of resolute, strong-armed men with their various implements, led the devious way back through the woods, and up round the ledgy and precipitous face of the mountain, till they reached a point a little above the level of the cave. Here they paused, and sent the hunter out along a lateral shelf of the declivity, to search for the most accessible path to their destination. While the company were pausing here for this purpose, their attention was suddenly arrested by the heralding shouts of another company of men, evidently approaching from the other side of the mountain. And, soon after, a band of a dozen well-armed, hardy-looking fellows, headed by a tall, powerfully-framed man, made their appearance, pushing their way down the brush-tangled steeps from above.

"Turner!" exclaimed the sheriff, addressing the leader of the approaching band, who was at once recognized to be an ex-sheriff of the county, and one of the most daring and successful felon-hunters ever known in northern New-Hampshire; "General Turner, of all men you are the one I should have most wished to see, just at this time. We have a tough case on hand; but how did you get here?"

"The only way left for us. When we reached the tavern down here on the river, not a boat was to be had; and so we steered up the Magalloway, and came over by land, as you see. I had heard of this desperate character, and your dealings with him, before the present outrage, and have now come to help you put him through. Now tell us the state of the siege,—some idea of which we got from a man we met, a mile back on our way."

The sheriff then related all that had transpired, and named the new plan of operations, of which they were then proceeding to test the feasibility.

"We will have him!" said Turner, with a determined look. "If we can't tear away the rocks with bars and sledges, we will send off for a barrel of gunpowder to blow them open; and if that fails, I will go into the cave, myself, and if I don't snake him out before I've done with him, he must be a harder customer than it has ever yet been my lot to encounter."

By this time the hunter had returned, and now pointed out the best way to the place of which they were in quest; when the sheriff, ex-sheriff, and their respective followers, preceded by their guide, commenced forcing their passage along the craggy cliffs; and, within ten minutes, they found themselves standing on the off-set forming the rocky roofing of the cavern. The appearance of the place was much more favorable for the proposed attempt at excavation than any of them had anticipated. From the front face of the rock, which was pierced by the mouth of the cave at the bottom, and which presented a perpendicular of about fifteen feet, the topmost stones rapidly fell off to a depression over the centre of the cave, which, it was at once seen, must greatly reduce the depth of rock to be removed or broken up, before reaching the interior. And, in addition to this encouraging discovery, the rocks in and around this depression, through which the smoke was yet visibly oozing, appeared to be detached from the main ledge, and, though heavy, such as might be removed by appliances at command. Still, there was a formidable mass to be disrupted and removed before an entrance could be effected in that direction. But the men, impatient of inaction, and eager to be doing something to forward the common object,—like all bodies of excited people anxious to cooperate, but unable to decide on a course of action,—scarcely waited to be told what was wanted, before they all sprang to the work with that resistless union of faith and exertions which requires no intervention of miracles to remove mountains. The moss, earth, decayed wood, and all else of the loose covering of rocks, quickly disappeared under their busy hands or rapidly-plied implements. The smaller stones and broken fragments, as soon as loosened or beat off by the bars and sledges, were seized and hurled in showers over the surrounding ledges; the larger ones, when started from their beds by the long heavy prys, were grappled with the united strength of all that could get to them, rolled up, pitched over the precipice in front, and sent bounding and crashing down the gorge below. And the whole forest resounded with the din of their heavy blows and the mingling sounds of their varied labors.

While all who could find room to work on the excavation were thus briskly pushing forward their operations, a smaller party were engaged in beating down the rocky battlement in front; and so vigorously and successfully were the efforts of these also directed, that, in a short time, the top was so lowered, and the seamy rocks so split down, that, with the mass of stones thrown over, a path of easy descent was formed from the top, down to the shelf below, on one side of the mouth of the cave; which was now securely blocked up, and closely invested by the party previously stationed in near vicinity to guard it.

Thus bravely, and with no token of faltering at the obstacles which they frequently encountered, and which sometimes required their greatest exertions to overcome, did these strong-armed and determined men push on their herculean labors, for the space of nearly two hours; when suddenly a shout of exultation rose from those at work lowest down in the excavation, and the next moment the voice of the ex-sheriff was heard exclaiming to those around him:

"Courage, men! the game is nearly unkenneled. I have driven my bar through, and the hole is so large that the bar has slipped from my hands and gone to the bottom!"

The excitement now became intense; and all crowded round the rim of the excavation, and, with uneasy looks and hushed voices, eagerly peered down into the dimly-visible perforation at the bottom; while those already within the excavated basin began, with beating hearts, carefully loosening and pulling out the shivered and detached stones, lying around the small aperture just effected, and continued the process until all the outer edges of the broad, thin rock, which the crow-bar had perforated, and which appeared to form the lower or interior layer of the roofing of the cavern, were fully laid bare, and brought within the reach of the outstretched arms of those bending down to grasp them. A dozen brawny hands were then seen securing their gripe on one side of the rock; when, at the word of the sheriff, a sudden pull was made with a force that raised the whole mass nearly a foot from its bed.

"It comes bravely!" said the sheriff. "Now fix yourselves for another pull; while two or three of you above there come forward with your rifles, and stand with them levelled at the hole, as we open it, lest the desperate dog make a rush before we are prepared. Now altogether,—there, now!"

The effort was made, and the sheeted rock was brought to a perpendicular; when it was grappled by the men with might and main, lifted clear from its bed, and thrust aside, letting the sunlight down upon the bottom of the cave through a chasm nearly large enough to permit two men to jump in abreast. There was now a dead pause; and all eyes were turned on the chasm in silent and trembling expectation. But nothing appearing, the hunter and ex-sheriff crept down prostrate to the brink of the chasm, and worked their heads cautiously below, to get a fuller view of the interior. After looking, with slightly varied positions, about a minute, they both rose and came up on the bank; when the ex-sheriff, turning to the hunter, softly said:

"He is there. I caught sight of his legs standing in a corner near the mouth of the cave. Did you get a view?"

"Yes, a better one than that; I saw his legs, and as much of his body as I could without bringing my own head within the line of his eyes. He stands there on the watch, with cocked rifle pointing to this opening, while he has a dirk within his left hand grasping the rifle, and I think a pistol within his other hand, held in a similar manner. I can read his plan."

"What is it, as you read it?"

"To take the first that enters with his rifle, pistol the second, make a rush through the rest, and stab as he goes."

"About the truth, probably. But what is to be done? Shall you and I leap down, make a spring upon him, and stand our chance?"

"Why,—yes," replied the hunter, with a little hesitation; "yes, if we can't do better than throw away one good life, at least, for a bad one. But if we could contrive to divert his attention suddenly to the mouth of the cave—"

"You are right! Stay here a moment, and I will put matters in train to carry out your suggestion," eagerly interrupted Turner, taking the sheriff confidentially aside.

In a few minutes the determined ex-sheriff followed by four or five stout, resolute men, whose special assistance he had bespoken for the occasion, returned to the side of the hunter, and said:

"Get down there in your old position, where you can watch his movements. They have gone down to unblock the mouth of the cave outside, and make a feint of entering. If they succeed in drawing his fire, I will take that as a signal,—if not, then you give me the word, at the right moment, when his head, and with it naturally his rifle, is turned to the supposed new point of attack, and I will leap down and make a spring to get within the line of the muzzle before he can fire; and, the instant I disappear, you and these men follow, and be close on my heels for the grapple."

The hunter then edged down to his former place of observation, where he lay, while Turner sat crouching on the brink ready for the leap, narrowly watching the movements of the dreaded foe within, who was seen to be still standing motionless in the same position as before. Presently the movements of those outside the old entrance of the cavern, as they began cautiously to remove the blockading stones, became clearly audible, and soon a few straggling rays of light began to gleam into the interior from that direction. On perceiving these indications, the wary desperado began, for the first time, to exhibit signs of uneasiness. Slightly changing his position, he glanced rapidly from the already half-cleared entrance in front to the chasm just opened through the top in the rear. But neither seeing or hearing any thing that led him to expect any assault, except from the front, and evidently supposing it was now the intention of his assailants to drive him up through the top opening, to be seized as he came out, he drew back a step, and, turning the muzzle of his rifle towards the mouth of the cave, stood ready to fire upon the first who should make his appearance. This movement was not lost on the keenly-watching, hunter, who saw that it afforded a fair chance for a successful surprise; and he once parted his lips to give the signal for the onset. But, perceiving from the incoming light that the mouth of the cave was cleared from its obstructions, he ventured to await the effect of the feint now momentarily expected from that quarter. He had judged wisely. The delay was not in vain. A rustling sound, seeming to come from some one squeezing through the entrance, was now heard; and soon a dark object, resembling the head and shoulders of a man, making slow and cautious advances, was fully protruded into the cavern; when, suddenly, the whole ledge shook with the stunning report of a rifle, and the next moment, Turner, Phillips, and their chosen backers, had all disappeared in the cloud of smoke that came pouring up through the chasm. Quick, heavy, muffled sounds, as of fiercely-grappling tigers, instantly came from within. And within another minute, the stentorian voice of the daring leader of the onset was heard, shouting for the hand-cuffs and fetters.

The fierce siege was over. The desperate intentions and giant strength of the besieged, after a brief but terrible struggle, had been thwarted and overcome by the intrepidity and equal strength of the ex-sheriff; and he, now firmly clenched round the body, and held down, with every limb in the vise-like grasp of his iron-fisted captors, lay disarmed, helpless, and panting on the ground.

"There!" sternly cried the victorious leader of the hazardous assault, as he rose to his feet, after he had seen the heavy irons securely locked on the wrists and ankles of the silent and sullen prisoner,—"there! drag him out, feet foremost, into the open light of day, where he and his dark deeds have all now got to come, to meet the vengeance of an outraged community!"

It was done, and with no gentle hand; when a long, wild shout of exultation fiercely broke from the closely-encircling throng, thrilling the trembling forest around with the din, and rolling away to the farthest shores of the lake, to proclaim that the first murderer of the settlement—the black-hearted Gaut Gurley—was now a prisoner, and in the uncompromising hands of public justice.

The animated spectacle which now ensued, of trundling, pushing, and tumbling the chafed and growling prisoner down to the shore, amid the unrestrained demonstrations of the exulting multitude; the noisy and bustling embarkation, on the lake; the ostentatious display of mimic banners, formed by raising on tall poles, handkerchiefs, hats, coats, and whatever would make a show in the distance, as the long line of canoes, with the closely guarded prisoner in the centre, filed off in gorgeous array, through the glitter of the sun-lit lake, on their way to the great outlet; the pause and concentration there; the rapid descent down the river to the village, where a board of magistrates were waiting to sit on the case of the expected prisoner; and, finally, the loudly heralding kuk-kuk-ke-o-hos of the overflowing trapper, to announce, over a two-mile reach of the stream, the triumphant approach,—this animated and here extraordinary spectacle, we must leave to the delineation of the reader's imagination. Our attention is more strongly demanded in a different direction, to bring up other important incidents of our story, before proceeding any farther with the actors who have figured in this part of the narrative, or taking note of the examination to which they were now hurrying the prisoner.



CHAPTER XX.

"By thine infinite of woe, All we know not, all we know; If there be what dieth not, Thine, affection, is its lot."

Deep in the wilderness of woods and waters encircling the mouth of a small inlet, at the extreme northwestern end of the picturesque Maguntic, there lay encamped, at the point of a low headland, on one of the first nights of May, the three trappers, whose expedition had been the subject of so many gloomy speculations, and whose unexpectedly prolonged absence had caused, as we have seen, so much anxiety in the settlement to which they belonged. They had extended their outward journey more than double the distance contemplated by the Elwoods, at least when they left home; the mover of the expedition, Gaut Gurley, having proposed to make the shores of the Maguntic, and its feeding streams only, the range of their operations. But when they arrived there, as they did, on the ice, which was still firm and solid on the lakes, Gaut pretended to believe that the rich beaver-haunts, to which he had promised to lead them, could not be identified, much less reached, until the ice had broken up in the streams and lake. He, therefore, now proposed that they should first proceed over to the chief inlet of the Oquossak, stay one night in the camp, which was left in the great snowstorm of the fall before, dig out the steel-traps buried there, and, the next day, slide over the boats, also left there, on the glare ice,—as all agreed could easily be done on some light and simple contrivance,—and land them on the west shore of the Maguntic, where they could be concealed, and found ready for use when the lake opened. He would then, he said, lead them to a place among the head-water streams of the Magalloway, only a day's journey distant, where he once "trapped it" himself, and where, as the rivers there broke up early, he could promise them immediate success.

All this had been done; and the party, having spent nearly three weeks among the lakelets and interweaving streams going to make up the sources of the Magalloway and Connecticut rivers, with occasional recourse to the nearest habitations on the upper Magalloway, for provisions, but with very indifferent success in taking furs, had now, on the urging of young Elwood, returned to the Maguntic,—which, after a hard day's journey, they had reached, at the point where we have introduced them, about sunset the day but one preceding, thrown up a temporary shanty, and encamped for the night. On rising the next morning, Gaut had proposed that Claud remain at camp that day, to build a better shanty, and hunt in the near vicinity; while he and Mark Elwood should explore the stream, to a pond some miles above, where his previously discovered beaver-haunts, he said, were mostly to be found, and where, the snow and ice having wholly disappeared, they could now operate to good advantage. With this arrangement, however, the young man, whose secret suspicions had been aroused by one or two previous attempts made by Gaut to separate him from his father, plausibly refused to comply; and the consequence was, that they had all made the proposed explorations together, returned to camp without discovering any indications of the promised beaver, and laid down for the night, with the understanding, reluctantly agreed to by the moody and morose Gaut, that they should proceed down the lake to their boats the next morning, and embark for an immediate return to their homes, where the Elwoods felt conscious they must, by this time, be anxiously expected.

Such were the circumstances under which we have brought this singularly-assorted party of trappers to the notice of the reader, as they lay sleeping in their bough-constructed tents,—Gaut and Mark Elwood under one cover, and Claud under another, which he had fixed up for himself on the opposite side of their fire,—on the ominous night which was destined to prelude the most tragic and melancholy scene of our variously eventful story.

It was the hour of nature's deepest repose, and the bright midnight moon, stealing through the gently-swaying boughs of the dark pines that rose heavenward, like pinnacles, along the silent shores around, was throwing her broken beams fitfully down upon the faces of the unconscious sleepers, faintly revealing the impress which the thoughts and purposes of the last waking hours had left on the countenance of each. And these impresses were as variant as the characters of those on whose features they rested: that lingering on the sternly-compressed lips and dark, beetling brows of Gaut Gurley, ever sinister, was doubly so now; that on the face of Mark Elwood, whose vacillations of thought and feeling, through life, had exempted his features from any stamp betokening fixed peculiarity of character, was one of fatuous security; and that resting on the intellectual and guileless face of Claud Elwood was one of simple care and inquietude.

But what is that light, shadowy form, hovering near the sylvan couch of Claud, like some unsubstantial being of the air; now advancing, now shrinking away, and now again flitting forward to the head of the youthful sleeper, and there pausing and preventing the light from longer revealing his features? Yes, what is it? would ask a doubting spectator of this singular night-scene. A passing cloud come over the moon? No, there is none in the heavens. But why the useless speculation? for it is gone now, leaving the sleeper's face again visible, and wearing a more unquiet and disturbed air than before. His features twitch nervously, and expressions of terror and surprise flit over them. He dreams, and his dream is a troubled one. Let the novelist's license be invoked to interpret it.

He was alone with his father on a boundless plain, when suddenly a dark, whirlwind tempest-cloud fell upon the earth around them, and soon separated him from the object of his care. As he was anxiously pressing on through the thickly-enveloping vapors, in the direction in which the latter had disappeared, he was suddenly confronted by a monstrous, black, and fearful living apparition, who stood before him in all the horrid paraphernalia ascribed to the prince of darkness, apparently ready to crush him to the earth, when a bright angel form swiftly interposed. Starting back, with the rapidly-chasing sensations of terror and surprise, he looked again, and the fiend stood stript of his infernal guise, and suddenly transformed into the person of Gaut Gurley, who, with a howl of dismay, quickly turned and fled in confusion. The amazed dreamer then turned to his deliverer, who had been transformed into the beauteous Fluella, whose image, he was conscious, was no longer a stranger among the lurking inmates of his heart. A sweet, benignant smile was breaking over her lovely features; and, under the sudden impulse of the grateful surprise, he eagerly stretched out his arms towards her, and, in the effort, awoke.

"Where, where is she?" he exclaimed, springing to his feet, and glaring wildly around him. "Why!" he continued, after a pause, in which he appeared to be rallying his bewildered senses,—"why! what is this? a dream, nothing but a dream? It must be so. But what a strange one! and what could have caused it? Was there not some one standing over me, just now, darkening my face like a shadow? I feel a dim consciousness of something like it. But that, probably, was part of the same dream. Yes, yes, all a mere dream; all nothing; so, begone with you, miserable phantoms! I will not suffer—"

But, as if not satisfied with his own reasoning, he stopped short, and, for many minutes, stood motionless, with his head dropped in deep thought; when, arousing himself, he returned to his rude resting-place, and laid down again, but only to toss and turn, in the restless excitement which he obviously found himself unable to allay. After a while spent in this tantalizing unrest, he rose and slowly made his way down to the edge of the lake, a few rods distant, where, scooping up water with his hands, he first drank eagerly, then, bathed his fevered brow, and then, rising, he stood some time silent on the shore,—now pensively gazing out on the darkly-bright expanse of the moon-lit lake; and now listening to the mysterious voices of night in the wilderness, which, in low, soft, whispering undulations of sound, came, at varied intervals, gently murmuring along the wooded shores, to die away into silence in the remote recesses of the forest. These phenomena of the wilds he had once or twice before noted, and tried to account for, without, however, attaching much consequence to them. But now they became invested with a strange significance, and seemed to him, in his present excited and apprehensive state of mind, portentous of impending evil. While his thoughts were taking this channel, the possibility of what might be done in his absence suddenly appeared to occur to him; and he hastened back to camp, where he slightly replenished the fire, and, taking a recumbent position, with his loaded rifle within reach, kept awake, and on the watch, till morning.

After daylight Claud arose, as if nothing unusual had occurred to disturb him, bustled about, built a good fire, and began to prepare a morning meal from the fine string of trout he had taken during yesterday's excursion. The noise of these preparations soon awoke the two sleepers; who, complimenting him on his early rising, also arose, and soon joined him in partaking the repast, which, by this time, he had in readiness.

As soon as they had finished their meal, which was enlivened by no other than an occasional brief, commonplace remark, the thoughts of each of them being evidently engrossed by his own peculiar schemes and anxieties, the trappers, by common consent, set about their preparations to depart; and, having completed them, leisurely took their way down the western shore of the lake towards the spot at which they had hauled up and concealed their canoe, and which, if they followed the deep indentures of the shore in this part of the lake, must be four or five miles distant.

For the first mile or two of their progress nothing noticeable to an indifferent observer occurred to vary the monotony of their walk, as they tramped steadily and silently forward, in the usual, and, indeed, almost the only practicable mode of travelling in the forest, appropriately denominated Indian file. But young Elwood, whose feelings had been deeply stirred by the fancies of the night, which, to say the least, had the effect to make him more keenly apprehensive and vigilant, had noted several little circumstances, that, to him, wore a questionable appearance. Gaut, who at first led the way, soon manoeuvred to get Mark Elwood, the next in the order of their march, in front; and then urged him forward at a much faster pace than before, at the same time often casting furtive glances behind him, as if to see whether Claud, who seemed inclined to walk more slowly than the rest, would not fall behind, and soon be out of sight. And, when the latter quickened his pace, he showed signs of vexation, which had not passed unnoticed. All this Claud had noted, together with the singular expression which Gaut's countenance assumed, and which filled him with an undefinable dread, and a lively suspicion that the man was on the eve of attempting the execution of foul purposes. Consequently he resolved to follow up closely, having no fears for himself, and believing his presence would prevent any attempt that might be meditated against his father. This precaution, for some time, the young man was careful to observe; but, as he was passing over a small brook that crossed his path, his eye caught the appearance of a slight trail, a few rods up the stream, and curiosity prompted him to turn aside to examine it. When he reached the place, he soon detected indications which convinced him that some person had recently been there; and, forgetful of his resolution, in the interest the circumstance excited, he commenced a closer inspection, which resulted in discovering a fresh imprint, in the soft mud on one side of the brook, of a small moccasined foot. This curious and unexpected discovery, uncertain as were its indications of any identity of the person, or even of the age or sex of the person, by whom that delicate footprint was made, at once diverted his attention, from the particular care by which it had been engrossed, and started that other of the two trains of thought, which, for the last month, but especially since his singular awakening the past night, had constituted the chief burden of his mind,—his increasing apprehensions for his father's safety, and his lurking but irrepressible regard for the chief's beautiful daughter, whose image, since his dream, had haunted him with a pertinacity for which a resort to reason alone would fail to account.

"If music be the food of love,"

dreams, we apprehend, whatever the immortal bard might have thought of the matter, have often proved the more exciting stimulus of the tender passion; many of whose happiest consummations might be traced back to an origin in some peopled scene of a dreaming fancy, whose peculiar effect on the sympathies has frequently been felt by the sternest and most sceptical, though never very clearly explained in any of our written systems of the philosophy of the soul and its affections.

In the pleasing indulgence of the feelings and fancies which had been thus freshly kindled, Claud stood, for some minutes, quite unconscious of the lapse of time, though it had been long enough to place his companions far out of sight and hearing. From this reverie he was suddenly aroused by the sharp report of a rifle, bursting on his ear from the woods, about a quarter of a mile off, in the direction just taken by his companions. Starting at the sound, which sent a boding chill through his heart, and bitterly taxing himself for his inadvertent loitering, he sprang back to the trail he had left, and made his way along over it towards the place indicated by the firing, with all the speed which excited nerves and agonizing anxiety could bring to his aid. But, before reaching the spot at which he was aiming, and just as he was beginning to slacken his pace, to look around for it, Gaut Gurley burst through the bushes, a few rods ahead, and, running towards him with all the manifestations of a man in hasty retreat before a pursuing foe, eagerly exclaimed:

"Run, Claud! run for your life! We have just been beset by hostile Indians, who fired on us, and, I fear, have killed your father. I have misled them a little; but they will soon be on our trail. Run! run!" he added, seizing the other by the arm to start him into instant flight.

"What!" exclaimed the astonished young man, hanging back, and by degrees recovering from the surprise with which he was at first overwhelmed by the strange and startling announcement. "What! hostile Indians?—hostile to whom, to my father, or to me, that I should run from them? Gaut Gurley, what, O what does this mean?"

"Why, it means," said the other, keeping up all the motions and flourishes naturally used by one urging another to flee,—"it means, as I say, our lives are in danger. Let us escape while we can. Come, come, there's not a moment to lose!"

"I will know," said Claud, with a quick, searching glance at the face of the other,—"yes, I will know for myself what has happened," he sternly added, suddenly breaking from the grasp on his arm, and bounding forward to execute his purpose with a quickness and rapidity that made pursuit useless.

"Hold!" cried Gaut, in an increasingly fierce and angry tone, "hold, instantly,—on your life, hold! I warn you, sir, to stop, instantly to stop!"

But, heeding neither the entreaties nor the threats which, his ear told him, were strangely mingled in the tones of the words thus thundered after him, Claud, in his agony of apprehension, eagerly rushed on towards the forbidden scene, which could not now be thirty rods distant, and had proceeded, perhaps, forty yards; when, just as he was straightening up, after stooping to pass under an obstructing limb of a tree, extending across his path, he became conscious of the sound of the sudden hitting of the limb, and partly so of the concussion of a shot, still farther in his rear. But he neither heard nor knew more; and, the next moment, lay stretched senseless on the ground.

When he awoke to consciousness, after, he knew not what lapse of time, he found himself in a different place; lying, as he felt conscious, badly wounded, on a soft, elastic bed of boughs, within a dense thicket of low evergreens, through which his opening eye caught the gleams of widely-surrounding waters. A ministering angel, in the shape of the peerless daughter of the wilds, who had lately so much occupied his thoughts, was wistfully bending over him, with a countenance in which commiseration and woe had found an impersonation which no artist's pencil could have equalled.

"Fluella!" he feebly murmured,—"how came you here, Fluella?"

She saw that the effort to speak caused him a pang, and, without replying to the question, motioned him to silence; when, being no longer able to master her emotions, she sat down by his side, and, covering her face with both hands, began to grieve and sob like a child. Poor girl! who could measure the depth of her heart's anguish? She could not answer, had she deemed it best. We must answer the question for her. But, to do so, to the full understanding of the reader, we must again recur to the events of the past,—her troubled past, at least,—during the three or four days preceding the time of her appearance as an actor in the sad scene before us.

She had learned from Mrs. Elwood that Claud had pledged himself to her that he would return from his expedition within the month of April; and to Fluella, with her undoubting confidence in his word, a failure to redeem that pledge would be but little less than certain intelligence that some evil had befallen either him or his father, in their unknown place of sojourn in the wilderness. Consequently her solicitude—growing out of her secretly nourished but overmastering love for him—became, as the time approached which was to relieve or realize her fears for the result of an expedition undertaken under such dreadful auspices, each day more deep and absorbing. And, the last morning but one of the expiring month, she went out early on to the rock-bound shore of the lake, on which her father's cabin was situated, and commenced her watch from the most commanding points, for the appearance of the expected party, on their way homeward from the upper lakes. And during that anxious day, and the still more anxious one that followed, she kept up her vigils, with no other cessation than what her brief absences for her hastily-snatched meals at the house required; sometimes standing, for an hour at a time, in one spot, intently gazing out into the lake, and sometimes moving restlessly about, and hurrying from cliff to cliff along the beetling shore, to obtain a better observation. But, no appearance or indications of their coming rewarding her vigils during all that time, she retired from the shore, at the approach of night, on the last day of April, sad and sick at heart from disappointment, and painfully oppressed with apprehension for the fate of one for whose safety she felt she would have given her own worthless life as a willing sacrifice. But, her feelings still allowing her neither peace nor quietude, she left the house after supper; and, in the light of the nearly full moon, that was now throwing its mellow beams over the wild landscape, unconsciously took her way to the lake-shore, where she had already spent so many weary hours in her fruitless vigils. Here, climbing a tall rock on the bluff shore, she resumed her watch, and long stood, straining both eye and ear to catch sight of some moving thing, or the sound of some plashing oar, out on the lake, that might indicate the coming, even at this late hour, of the objects of her solicitude. But no such sight or sound came up from the sleeping waters, to greet and gladden her aching senses. All there was as motionless and silent as the plains of the dead.

"The time is past!" she at length despairingly muttered, slowly withdrawing her gaze, and standing as if to collect her thoughts and ponder. "Yes, passed by, now. He will not come!"

And her ideas immediately reverted to the other alternative for which she had before made up her mind, in case the party did not return within the month; but which, having been kept in the background of her thoughts, by her hope of their coming, now occurred to her with startling effect. She fancied Claud the victim of outrage or misfortune,—perhaps wounded and dying, by the same hand that might have previously struck down his father,—perhaps taken sick on his way home alone, and now lying helpless in the woods, where none could witness his sufferings or hear his cries for assistance. The thought sent a pang through her bosom, the more painful because, being something like a legitimate conclusion of her previous reasoning, she could not divest herself of it. She stood bewildered in the woes of her thick-coming fancies. The images thus conjured up from her distracting anxieties and excited brain, all heightened by the natural inspirations of the place and the hour, soon became to her vivid realities. And her burning thoughts at once insensibly ran into the form and spirit of one of the many beautiful plaints of England's gifted poetess:

"I heard a song upon the wandering wind, A song of many tones, though one full soul Breathed through them all imploringly; and made All nature, as they pass'd,—all quivering leaves, And low responsive reeds and waters,—thrill, As with the consciousness of human prayer. ———the tones Were of a suppliant. 'Leave me not' was still The burden of their music."

"I will not leave you!" she exclaimed, startling the silent glens and grottos around by the wild energy of her tones, and eagerly stretching out her hands towards the imagined scene, and the suppliant for her ministering services, "O Claud, I will come to you. My love, my life, my more than life, I will soon be with you! Go after him?" she resumed, after a sudden pause, to which she seemed to be brought by recalling her thoughts to their wonted channel, and being startled at the sober import of her own words. "Go in search of him in the woods! Yes," she added, after another long and thoughtful pause,—"yes, why not? I cannot, O, I cannot stay here another day, with these but too prophetic words, I fear, ringing in my ears. To be in the same wilderness with him were a pleasure, to the insupportable suspense I must suffer here. If I discover all to be well, I need not show myself; but, if it be as I fear, O, what happiness to be near him! Yes, it is decided; I will start in the morning."

And, hastily descending from her stand, with the firm, quick step and decisive air of one whose purpose is fixed, she struck off directly for the house; where, after a few hasty preparations, she retired to her bed, and, happily, after the exhausting cares of the day, was soon quieted into sound and refreshing slumber.

In accordance with her still unaltered resolution, she rose early the next morning; and with an indefinite intimation to her family of her intention to be absent among friends a day or two, swung to her side a small square basket of nutritious provisions, took a thick shawl to protect her from the damps of the night, proceeded directly to her canoe at the landing, embarked, and struck out vigorously along the winding shore, on her way to the next upper lake. A steady but quiet row of a couple of hours took her out of the great lake on which she had embarked, up the principal inlet, and into the Maguntic, whose western shores, she had understood, were to be the base of the operations of the absent party. Here she turned short to the left, and, drawing in close to land, rowed slowly and cautiously along the western shore, following round all the numerous indentations, and continually sending her searching glances up its wooded shores, that no appearance of the trail of human beings might escape her observation.

After rowing two or three miles in this manner, and without noticing any thing that particularly attracted her attention, she reached the first of the three headlands, making out from this side a considerable distance into the lake, beyond the average line of the shore. As she was rounding this point, her eye fell on a dark protuberance, in a dense thicket a few rods in-shore, which appeared of a more oblong and regular form than is usual in such places. And, scanning the appearance more closely, she soon discerned a small piece of wrought wood, resembling a part of the blade of an oar, slightly projecting from one side of the apparent brush-heap. Starting at the sight, she immediately ran her canoe ashore, and proceeded at once to the spot; when, closely peering under the brush-wood, she discovered three canoes, with their oars, concealed beneath a deep covering of boughs, surmounted by a scraggy treetop lying carelessly over them, as if blown from some neighboring tree.

This, to her, was an important discovery; for it told her—after she had carefully examined the place, and found that no one had been to the boats since they were concealed, which she thought must have been done several weeks before—it told her, at once, that the trappers had gone to some distant locality among the streams and mountains, to the west or north, from which they had not yet returned to the lake; but doubtless would so return before proceeding homeward, provided the Elwoods had not both been slain or disabled by their suspected companion. The discovery, notwithstanding the light it had thrown on the first movements of the trappers, and much as it narrowed the range of her search for them, but little relieved her harrowing apprehensions; and she resolved to proceed up the lake with her observations, which might now as well be confined to this side of it, and the larger streams which should here be found entering it, and down some of which the company, if they came at all, would probably now soon come, on their way to the canoes. And, accordingly, she again set forth on her solitary journey. But, being conscious that the trappers might now at any time suddenly make their appearance, she proceeded more cautiously, keeping as far as possible out of the views that might be taken from distant points of the lake, and from time to time turning a watchful eye and ear on the shores around and before her. Thus, slowly and timidly advancing, she at length reached and rounded the second headland in her course, where another and still more interesting discovery was in store for her. As she came out from the overhanging trees beneath which she had shot along the point, she unexpectedly gained a clear view of the extreme end of the lake, with what appeared to be the mouth of a considerable stream, and suddenly backed her oar, to pause and reconnoitre; when she soon noticed one spot, near the supposed inlet, which wore a different hue from the rest, and which, a closer inspection told her, must be imparted by the lingering of undissipated smoke, from a fire kindled there as late, at least, as that morning. Her heart beat violently at the discovery; for she felt assured that the trappers had reached the lake, had encamped there the night before, and could not now be many miles distant. Fearing she should be seen, if she remained longer on the water, she at once resolved to conceal her canoe in some place near by, and proceed by land through the woods to the spot of the supposed encampment, or near enough to ascertain how far her conjectures were true, and how far her new-lit hopes were to be realized. All this—after many a misgiving and many an alarm, from the sudden movements of the smaller animals of the forest, started out from their coverts by her stealthy advance—had been by her, at length, successfully accomplished; the camp detected from a neighboring thicket; cautiously approached, finally entered, and the joyful discovery made that three persons had slept there the night before. Hieing back, like a frighted bird, into the screening forest, she selected a covert in a dense thicket on an elevation about an hundred yards distant, where, unseen by the most searching eye, she could look down into the camp; and there she lay down and anxiously awaited the approach of night, and, with it, the expected return of the party, who, she felt confident, could be no others than those of whom she was in search. And it was not all a dream with Claud, when he fancied some one standing by his couch of repose. A flitting form had, that night, indeed, for a moment hovered over him, looking down, with the sleepless eye of love, on his broken slumbers, and trying to divine, perhaps, the very dreams which, through some mysterious agency of the mental sympathies, her presence was inciting.

Although the maiden had now the unspeakable satisfaction of knowing that none of her fears had thus far been realized, yet she felt keenly sensible that the danger was not over; and she therefore determined that she would not lose sight of the objects of her vigilance and anxiety, at least until she had seen them embarked for home on the open lake, where deeds of darkness would be less likely to be attempted than in the screening forest. She had, therefore, started from her uneasy slumbers, the next morning, at daybreak; watched from her covert, with lively concern, the movements in the camp; and no sooner seen them packed up for a start, and headed towards their boats, then she shrank noiselessly away from her concealment, which was situated so as to give her considerably the start of them; and fled rapidly down the lake, in a line parallel to the one along the shore which the trappers would naturally take, and so near it that, from chosen stands, she could see them as they came along. And thus, for miles, like the timid antelope, she hovered on their flank,—now pausing to get a glance of them through the trees as they came in sight, and now fleeing forward again, for a new position, to repeat the observation. Up to this time she had kept considerably in advance of the moving party; but now, suddenly missing Claud, she sought a covert, and stood watching for him, till Mark Elwood, followed by Gaut Gurley, came abreast of the spot she occupied; when, suddenly, the forest shook and trembled from the report of a gun, bursting from the bushes, seemingly, almost beneath her feet. A single wild glance revealed to her appalled senses Gaut Gurley, clenching his smoking rifle, and, with the look of an exulting fiend, glaring out from behind a tree, towards his prostrate, convulsed, and dying victim. On recovering from the deeply paralyzing effect of the horrid spectacle, her first thought was for Claud; and, with the distracting thought, her eye involuntarily sought for the murderer of his father, who had shrunk back from his position, but whom she soon detected hastily reloading his rifle, and then starting, with a quick step, along back the path in which he had just come,—in search, as her alarmed heart suggested, of another victim for his infernal malice. With a sharp, smothered cry of anguish, she bounded out from her covert, and flew back, in a line parallel with that of the retreating murderer, till she saw him meet the alarmed young man hurrying forward to the rescue; when she suddenly paused, and listened with breathless interest to the dialogue we have already related as occurring between them. She heard—and her heart bounded with pride as she did so—she heard the manly and determined language of the young man; she saw him rush by the wretch who was trying to mislead him, to conceal his own crime. But she saw, also, the next moment, with a dismay that transfixed her to the spot, the murderous rifle raised, and the retreating, unconscious object of its aim stumble forward to the ground; then the monster, as if uncertain of the execution of his bullet, rush forward, with gleaming knife, apparently to finish his work; and then disappear in the direction of the concealed canoes, now less than a half-mile beyond. All this she had witnessed, with an agony which no pen can describe; and then, with the last glimpse of the retiring assassin, flown, to the side of his second victim, badly but not fatally wounded; staunched, as she best could, the blood pouring from his wounds; hurried off for her canoe, luckily hid near by; brought it up to the shore, within a few yards of the spot where he had fallen; drawn him gently down to it, and got him into it, she knew not how; and then, after obliterating the trail, entered herself, and rowed off to the thickly wooded little island, a furlong to the northeast, but hid by an intervening point from the view of the foe, now supposed to be on his way to the boats. Here she had contrived to draw Claud up, in the light canoe, on the farthest shore, and, by degrees, got both him and the boat on the dry, mossy ground, safely within a thicket wholly impervious to outward view. Still fearful of Gaut's return, she crept to the south end of the island, which she had scarcely reached when she saw him come round the point, land, drag down the body of Mark Elwood, take it out some distance from the shore, and sink it, by steel-traps and stones tied to it, deep in the lake. She then, with lively concern, saw him return and proceed towards the spot where Claud had fallen, but soon reappear, evidently much disturbed at not finding the body, yet not seeming to suspect how it had been disposed of, though several times coming down to the edge of the water and peering anxiously up and down the lake; but she was soon relieved from her fears by seeing him take to his boat, row rapidly round the point, there take in tow two other canoes,—which, it appeared, he had brought up and left there,—and then row down the lake, in the direction of the great outlet; under the belief, doubtless, that Claud had revived, struck down through the woods for the upper end of the lake below, where, if he had not before sunk down and died of his wounds, he might be waylaid and finished. Thus relieved of this pressing apprehension, she hurried back to her charge, and carefully examined his wounds; when she found that the bullet, whose greatest force had been broken by the obstructing limb, had struck near the top of his head, and ploughed over the skull without breaking it; that, of the two stabs inflicted, one had been turned by the collar-bone, making only a long, surface wound, the other had passed through the fleshy part of the arm and terminated on a rib beneath, producing a flow of blood, which, but for the timely and plentiful application of beaver-fur, pulled from a skin which she saw protruding from his pack, must have soon terminated his life. With the drinking-cup she found slung to his side, she brought water, washed the wounds, laid the ruptured parts in place, and, with plasters of cloth cut from her handkerchief, and made adhesive by balsam taken from a tree at hand, covered and protected them; and thus, by the application of a skill she learned from her father, placed them in a situation where nature, with proper care, would, of herself, complete the sanatory operation. She then resumed the process of bathing his head and face, and, within another hour, was thrilled with joy in witnessing his return to consciousness, in the manner we described before leaving him for this long but necessary, digression.

After giving vent to her painfully laboring emotions a while, the maiden softly arose, and, creeping down under the overhanging boughs to the edge of the water, sat down on a stone and bathed her throbbing brow, for some time, in the limpid wave; after which, having in a good measure regained her usual firmness and tranquillity, she returned to the side of her wounded friend, whom she found wrapt in the deep slumber generally produced by exhaustion from loss of blood. After gazing a while on his face, with the sad and yearning look of a mother on a disease-smitten child, a new thought seemed suddenly to occur to her, and she noiselessly stole away to her former lookout, at the south end of the island, where, with a brightening eye, she caught sight of the loathed and dreaded homicide, just entering the distant outlet. Waiting no longer than to feel assured that he had disappeared with the real intention of descending the stream, she returned to her still sleeping charge, slowly and carefully slid the canoe down into the water, headed it round with her hands, gained her seat in the stern, and pushed out into the lake, shaping her course obliquely down it towards the mouth of a small river entering from the eastern side, at the lower end of the lake, but still nearly a mile distant from the outlet in which the murderer had disappeared. Softly and smoothly as a gently-rocking cradle, the light canoe, under the skillfully plied oar of the careful maiden, glided through the waveless waters on her destined course, and, for more than an hour, steadily kept on its noiseless way, without once appearing to disturb the repose of the slumbering invalid. But, as the hitherto low-looking forest bordering the eastern shore began to loom up, and thus apprise the fair rower that she was now nearing the point to which she had been directing her course, she noticed, with concern, that the lake was beginning to be agitated, even where she then was, from a gathering breeze; while a long, light, advancing line, extending across the lake in the distance behind her, plainly told of the rapid approach of wind, which must soon greatly increase the disturbance of the waters, and the consequent rocking of the canoe. Knowing how injuriously such motion of the boat might affect the invalid, she put forth her utmost strength in propelling the canoe forward to reach the quiet haven before her, in season to escape the threatened roughness of the water. But her best exertions could secure only a partial immunity from the trouble she thus sought to avoid. The wind struck her long before gaining the place; when, in spite of all her endeavors to steady it, the canoe began to lurch and toss among the gathering waves; while the almost immediate awakening of the disturbed invalid, his twinges of pain and suppressed groans, told her, as they sent responsive thrills of anguish through her bosom, how much he was suffering from the motion. To her great relief, however, she now soon reached and shot into the still waters of the stream, and this trouble, at least, was over. Here, after passing in out of sight of the lake, she drew up her oar, and paused to reflect and conclude what should be her next movement; when Claud, whose head was pillowed in the bow of the boat, and whose eye was resting tenderly on her downcast countenance, soon read her perplexity, and again asked to be informed of all that had happened, and the object of her present movement. She told him,—with such reservations as maidenly modesty and pride suggested,—she told him all she had seen, and in conclusion proposed, as their enemy might ambush them, and as it was now drawing towards night, and the lake would not be quiet enough for some hours, at least, to permit them to proceed, that they should row up the river till they found an eligible spot, and encamp for the night. To this Claud readily assented; and they again set forth up the gentle stream, that, as before intimated, here came in from the southeast; and, after proceeding some distance, the anxious eye of the maiden fell on a place on the left bank, where a temporary shelter could easily be rigged up, under the wide-spreading and low-set limbs of a thick-topped evergreen, which, of itself, would be ample protection against the dews of heaven. Drawing up the canoe on land near the tree, in the same manner as at the island, she proceeded to gather large quantities of fine hemlock boughs, and dry, elastic mosses, arrange them under the tree, in the form of bed and pillow, and over the whole to spread Claud's blanket; thus making a couch as safe and comfortable as ever received the limbs of a suffering invalid. Upon this, partly by his own exertions and partly by her assistance, he was then, without much difficulty, soon transferred from the canoe; when, with his light hatchet (she having brought all his implements along with him in the boat), she soon erected neat, closely-woven wicker walls of boughs, from the ground to the limbs above, on both sides, providing within one of them a space for herself. She then brought fuel, kindled a small fire in front, and took her position at his side, to be ready for such ministering offices as his case might seem to require. She found that he had again fallen into a profound slumber, which she at first regarded as a favorable omen; and, in the conscious security of the spot, in the belief that he had received none of the injuries she had apprehended from the motion of the boat, and, above all, in the indulgence of that overweening pride of affection which covets all pains and sacrifices for the loved one, she felt a satisfaction which was almost happiness, in her situation. But it was not destined to be of very long duration. She at length began to perceive a gradual reddening of his cheeks, and then, soon after, an increasing shortness of respiration, and a general restlessness of the system. Alarmed at these symptoms, she felt his pulse, and at once discovered that he was in a high fever, supervening from his wounds, and caused, or much aggravated, doubtless, by the jostling of the boat on his way hither. Starting back, as if some unexpected calamity had suddenly fallen upon her, she stood some minutes absorbed in earnest self-consultation. What should she do? She could not, dare not, even were it daytime, leave him to go miles away for her father, or others, for aid or advice. No; she must stay by him. And, having seen the alleviating effects of cold water in fevers and inflammations, and knowing that there were no other remedies within reach, she at once decided on its application. Accordingly, with her cup of water at her side, and a piece of soft, clean moss in her hand, she began sponging his face, neck, and the flesh around his wounds; and repeating this process at short intervals, she continued the tender assiduities, with only occasional snatches of repose, till the welcome morning light broke over the forest. She then rose, and, with a miniature camp-kettle found among her patient's effects, prepared some gruel from the pounded parched corn which she had brought with her. This he mechanically took from her hand, when aroused for the purpose, but immediately relapsed again into the same state of unconsciousness and stupor in which he had lain through the night. Through the day and night that followed, but little variation was discernible in his condition, and as little was made in his treatment, by his fair, anxious nurse. Through the next day and night it was still the same; but towards night, on the third day after his attack, he began to show signs of amendment, and before dark his fever had entirely subsided. Perceiving this, the rejoiced maiden prepared him some more stimulating nourishment, in the shape of broth made from jerked venison. Having partaken freely of this, he then, with a whispered "I am much better, Fluella," sank back on his couch, and was soon buried in a sweet and tranquil slumber. Having carefully adjusted his blanket around him, and added her own shawl to the covering, and being now once more relieved of her most pressing fears for his fate, the exhausted girl laid down on her own rude couch, and, before she was aware, fell into a slumber so deep and absorbing that she never once awoke till the sun was peering over the eastern mountains the next morning. Her first waking glance was directed to the couch of the invalid. It was empty. Starting to her feet, with a countenance almost wild with concern, she hurriedly ran her eye through the forest around her; when, with a suppressed exclamation of joyful surprise, she soon caught sight of his form, slowly making his way back from a short walk, which he had, on awakening, an hour before, found himself able to take, along a smooth and level path on the bank of the river.

But we have not the space, nor even the ability, to portray adequately the restrained but lively emotions of joy and the charming embarrassment that thrilled the tumultuously-beating bosom of the one, and the deep gratitude and silent admiration that took possession of the other, of this singularly situated young couple, during the succeeding scenes of Claud's now rapid convalescence. Suffice it to say, that, on the afternoon of the second day but one from this auspicious morning, they were on their happy way down through the lakes and the connecting river, to the chief's residence, where they safely arrived some hours before night, and where they were greeted with demonstrations of delight which told what anxieties had been suffered on their account. Here, for the first time, they learned that the murderer had been taken and carried to the village for his preliminary trial; that the examination had been postponed, to allow the prisoner time to send for his counsel; and that the hearing was to commence that very evening, though the hunter, who had that day made a hurried journey to the chief's, to see if Fluella had returned or Claud been heard from, had expressed great fears that the evidence yet discovered might not be deemed sufficient to convict him of murder, and perhaps not to imprison him for a final trial. Claud, perceiving at once the importance of Fluella's testimony, as well as of his own, proposed that they should immediately proceed that evening down the lakes to the place of trial. But neither the chief nor his daughter would suffer him to undertake the journey that night. At her earnest suggestion, however, it was at length arranged that she, accompanied by her half-brother, a lad of fifteen, should go down that evening, and that the chief, with Claud, should follow early the next morning.

In pursuance of this arrangement, the resolute girl and her attendant, as soon as she had changed her dress and refreshed herself with a meal, embarked on the lake, and, at the end of the next hour, they reached the Great Rapids, leading, as before described, down into the Umbagog. Here her brother, whose eye and ear, ever since they started, had often been turned suspiciously to a dark, heavy cloud, which, seeming to hang over the upper portions of the Magalloway, had been continually sending forth peals of heavy thunder, hesitated about proceeding any farther, and warned his unheeding sister of their liability of being overtaken by the thunder-storm. But, finding her determined to proceed, if she was compelled to do so alone, he yielded, and, landing their canoe at the usual carrying places, they shot rapidly down the stream, and in less than another hour came out on the broad Umbagog, just as darkness was beginning to enshroud its waters, and cut off their view of the distant shores for which they were destined. But for the light of day they found an ample substitute in the electric displays, which, lighting up the lake to the blaze of noonday, were every instant leaping from, the black, angry clouds, now evidently passing off, with one almost continued roar of reverberating thunders, but a few miles to the north of them. A rapid row of about three miles now brought them to the foot of the lake, where the maiden had proposed to enter the river, and row down it to the swift water, a short distance above the village, and then proceed by land. Here, however, her course was unexpectedly impeded by one of those paradoxical occurrences which is peculiar to the spot, and which often happens on great and sudden rises of the Magalloway, that, though entering the Androscoggin a mile down its course, thus becomes higher than the level of the Umbagog, and pours its surplus waters along up its stream in the channel of the river last named, with a strong, rushing current into the lake. And our adventurers now found that masses of tangled trees, mill-logs, and all sorts of flood-wood, were driving so strongly and thickly up this channel that it would be in vain for them to attempt to proceed in that direction. But the purpose of the heroic girl to reach the village, by some means or other, was not to be thus shaken. She directed the boat to be rowed back to the Elwood Landing, where, leaving it, she with her attendant took the path to the cottage; and reaching this, and finding all dark within she boldly led the way down the long road to the bridge, miles below, with no other light than the still lingering flashes of lightning afforded to her hurrying footsteps. But it was not till after an exhausting walk, and some time past midnight, that she reached the bridge leading over the river to the tavern, where the trial was proceeding; and then only to encounter another great obstacle to her progress. On coming up to the bridge, she perceived, with astonishment and dismay, that one-half of the structure, with the exception of a single string-piece, the only connection now remaining between the two sides of the river, had been swept away by the sudden flood, or the revolving trees it bore on its rushing surface. She also ascertained, from a woman still up, watching with a sick child, in a house near by, that every boat on that side the river had been either carried off by the unexpected freshet, or taken since the bridge went off, by persons still coming in, to get over to the exciting trial, which, it was understood, would occupy the whole night. After pausing a moment, the still unshaken maiden borrowed and lighted a lantern, when, without disclosing her purpose, she left the house and proceeded directly to the end of the string-piece. She first examined it carefully, and finding it broad, level, and fixed in its bed, she then mounted the dizzy beam, and stood for a moment glancing down on the wild rush of roaring waters beneath. Her movements, to which the light she carried had attracted attention, were by this time seen and comprehended by the crowd around the tavern, on the opposite side, who now came rushing to the other end of the bridge, to deter her from the bold attempt. But she heeded them not; and in a moment more was seen, with a quick, firm step, gliding over the awful chasm; in another, she had reached the end, and stood in safety on the planks beyond,—where she was greeted by the throng, who had witnessed with amazement the perilous passage, in a shout of exultation at her escape, that rose loud and wild above the roar of the waters around them.



CHAPTER XXI.

"So those two voices met; so Joy and Death Mingled their accents; and, amidst the rush Of many thoughts, the listening poet cried, O! thou art mighty, thou art wonderful, Mysterious Nature! Not in thy free range Of woods and wilds alone, thou blendest thus The dirge note and the song of festival; But in one heart, one changeful human heart,— Ay, and within one hour of that strange world,— Thou call'st their music forth, with all its tones To startle and to pierce!—the dying Swan's, And the glad Sky-lark's,—Triumph and Despair!"

Our tale is running rapidly to a close, and we must no more loiter to gather flowers by the wayside, but depict the events which now come thickly crowding together to make up the mingled catastrophe.

When the sheriff and his scores of exulting assistants reached the village with their prisoner,—the desperate villain, whom they had, with so much difficulty and danger, dislodged and seized in his rocky den in the mountains,—the latter requested a postponement of his examination till the afternoon of the next day, that he might have time to send for, and obtain, his lawyer. This request was the more readily granted, as the party sent up the lakes with Moose-killer, for more evidence, had not yet returned, and as their expected discoveries, or at least their presence with those already made, might and would be required to fasten the crime, in law, on the undoubted criminal. The court, therefore, was adjourned to an indefinite hour the next afternoon; and the crowd, except the court, its officers, and those from a distance, dispersed to assemble, the next day, with increased numbers, to witness the final disposal of one who had now become, in the minds of all, the monster outlaw of the settlement. The prisoner was then taken to an adjoining old and empty log-house, a straw-bed laid on the floor for him, and a strong guard placed over him, both within and around the house without; so that, being constantly under the eyes of vigilant, well-armed men, there should be no possibility of his escape, either by his own exertions, or by the aid of secret accomplices. And these precautions being faithfully observed, the night wore away without alarm, or any kind of disturbance. The fore part of the succeeding day also passed, though people soon began to pour into the village from all quarters, with singular quietness,—all seeming to be oppressed with that deep feeling of hushed expectation which may often be seen to predispose men to a sort of restless silence, on the known eve of an exciting event. And, through the whole of it, no incident or circumstance transpired affecting the great interest of the occasion, till about noon; when the news spread that the anxiously-awaited party from the upper lakes were approaching. As they came up to the tavern, the now excited crowd quickly closed around them, and eagerly listened to their report. Of Claud Elwood, whom they had unknowingly passed and repassed, on their way up and down the lakes, while he was lying helpless in the secluded retreat to which his fair and devoted preserver had conveyed him, they had heard nothing, seen nothing, and discovered no clues by which his locality or fate could be traced or conjectured. But they had visited, and carefully examined, the place pointed out by Moose-killer as the one where Mark Elwood was supposed to have been slain; and, although they had failed to find the body on the land, or in the lake, with the best means they could command for dragging it, and although time had measurably effaced the traces by which the sagacious Indian had judged of the suspected deed, yet every appearance went to confirm the strict accuracy of his previous account. And, in addition, they at last found, slightly imbedded in the bark of a tree, in the range of the path, and a short distance to the south of the spot, a rifle bullet, which had evidently been, before striking the tree, smeared with a bloody substance, and also slightly flattened, as it might naturally have been, in striking a bone, on its way through a man's body. This seemed to establish, as a fact, the commission of a murder; but on whom committed was still left a debatable question. The movers of the prosecution had hoped, through this mission up the lakes, to obtain evidence which would conclusively establish the guilt of the prisoner. But, to effect this, and thus insure his conviction, something more conclusive was still obviously wanting. And it was then that the indefatigable hunter made, as the reader has already been apprised, his last rapid but fruitless journey to the chief's residence, in the hope that his mysteriously absent daughter might have returned with discoveries that would complete the chain of evidence. He having come back, however, without accomplishing any part of his object, and the prisoner's counsel having arrived, and, after a consultation with his client, become strangely clamorous to proceed at once to the examination, they finally concluded to go into the hearing with the presumptive evidence in possession, and, backing it with the showing of Gaut's previously suspicious character, for which they were now well prepared, call themselves willing to abide the result. All this being now settled, the court was declared open, and the counsel for the prosecution was requested to proceed with the case.

After the attorney for the prosecution had read the papers on which it was founded, and made a statement of what was expected to be proved in its support, the witnesses in that behalf were called and sworn. The first testimony introduced was that of Codman and others, to show the deep malice and implied threats of revenge which the prisoner had so clearly exhibited towards the supposed murdered man, in the prosecution of which the latter was a principal mover, the winter before. But this evidence, when sifted by the long and severe cross-examination that followed, and found to consist, instead of definite words, almost wholly of menacing looks and other silent demonstrations of rage, which are ever extremely difficult to bring out in words with their original effect, amounted to so little that the prisoner's counsel attempted to turn it into ridicule with considerable show of success. Testimony in relation to the canoe of the Elwoods, recently found washed up among the rapids, which was next introduced, was found, when tested in the same way, in despite of the opinions of the practical boatmen who were the witnesses, to be almost equally inconclusive of the prisoner's guilt; so much so, indeed, that his counsel seemed greatly inclined to appropriate it, as showing the probable manner in which the Elwoods, if they were not still both alive, had come to their end.

By this time,—as the court of inquiry was not opened till nearly sunset, and as the examinations, cross-examinations, and preliminary speeches of the opposing counsel, on disputed points of evidence, had been drawn out to seemingly almost interminable lengths,—by this time, it was nearly midnight; and the prosecuting party now proposed an adjournment till morning. But this was strenuously opposed by Gaut's lawyer, who, affecting to believe that the whole affair was a malicious prosecution growing out of the suit last winter, and got up by certain men who had banded together to revenge their defeat on that occasion, and ruin his client, boldly demanded that the prisoner should be discharged, or his conspiring enemies be compelled to proceed at once with "their sham prosecution," as he put on the face to call it.

This stand, which was obviously instigated by the prisoner himself, who narrowly watched the proceedings, and, from time to time, was seen whispering in the ear of his counsel, produced the desired effect: the motion was overruled, and the counsel for the prosecution told to go on with his evidence.

Moose-killer was then called on to the witnesses' stand, when, for the first time, Gaut exhibited evident feigns of uneasiness, and whispered something in the ear of his counsel, who thereupon rose and went into a labored argument against the admissibility of the evidence of an Indian, who was a pagan, and knew nothing about the God whose invocation constituted the sacred effect of the oath he had taken. But, on the questioning of the court, Moose-killer declared his full belief in the white Christian's God and Bible, and this objection was overruled, and the witness requested to proceed with his story.

The demure Indian, unmoved by the burning and vengeful eye of Gaut, which was kept constantly riveted upon him, then succinctly but clearly related all the facts, of which the reader has been apprised in the preceeding pages, in relation to the atrocious deed under investigation. And at the conclusion of his story he produced the bullet found imbedded in the tree, called attention to its smeared and flattened appearance, and then asked for the prisoner's rifle, to see whether it would fit in the bore. The rifle in question was then brought into court, the bullet applied to the muzzle, and pronounced an exact fit! A shout of exultation burst from the crowd, and in a tone so significant of the public feeling, and of their unanimous opinion on this point, that for a moment both the prisoner and his counsel were completely disconcerted. But, soon rallying, the latter started to his feet, and, having summoned back to its place his usual quantum of brass, demanded "the privilege of just looking at that rifle they were all making such a fuss about." It was accordingly handed to him; when, after noticing the size of the bore, which was a common one, and then glancing at some other rifles held in the hands of different spectators, he confidently requested that the first half-dozen rifles to be found among the crowd should be brought on to the stand. Five of the designated number were soon gathered and brought forward; and it was found, in the comparison, that three of them were of the same bore as that of Gaut, and that the ball in question would fit one as well as another.

"There! what has become of your bullet evidence now?" sneeringly exclaimed the exulting attorney. "Wondrous conclusive, a'n't it? But, as weak as the whole story is, I will make it still weaker. It is my turn with you now, my foxy red friend," he added, settling back in his seat to commence his cross-examination.

His vaunted cross-examination, however, resulted in giving him no advantage. The Indian could not be made, in the whole hour the brow-beating inquisitor devoted to him, either to cross himself or vary a single statement of his direct testimony, and he was petulantly ordered to leave the stand.

"Not done talk yet," said Moose-killer, lingering, and glancing inquiringly to the court and the counsel for the prosecution. "More story me tell yet."

Gaut's lawyer looked up doubtfully to the witness; but, thinking he must have told all he could to implicate the prisoner, and that any thing now added might show discrepancies, of which some advantage could be taken, remained silent, and, for once, interposed no objection to letting the Indian take his own course; when the latter, on receiving an encouraging intimation to speak from the other attorney, proceeded, in his peculiarly broken but graphic manner, to make in substance the following extraordinary revelation:

About ten years ago (he said), there came, from what part nobody knew, a strange, questionable personage, into the neighborhood of a few families of St. Francois Indians, encamping for the hunting season around the head-water lakes of the Long River, as he termed the Connecticut, and went to trapping for sable and beaver. But he soon fell into difficulties with the Indians, who believed he robbed their traps; and with one family in particular he had a fierce and bitter altercation. This family had a small child, that began to ramble from the wigwam out into the woods, and that, one night, failed to come home. They suspected who had got it, and next day followed the trail to the man's camp; when they soon found where the child had been butchered, cut up, and used to bait his sable-traps! But the monster, becoming alarmed, had fled, and never afterwards could be found.

With this, Moose-killer, who had evidently put his story in this shape to avoid interruption, suddenly paused, and then, with one hand raised imploringly towards the court and the other stretched out menacingly towards the prisoner, wildly exclaimed:

"O, that was my child! and this was the man who murdered it!"

A thrill of horror ran through the crowd as the witness came to the conclusion of his revolting story. And so completely were all taken by surprise by the startling, and as most of them believed truthful, revelation, and so great was the sensation produced by the appalling atrocities it disclosed, that the proceedings of the court were for some moments brought to a dead stand. But soon the shrill, harsh voice of Gaut's lawyer was heard rising above the buzz of the excited crowd, and bursting in a storm of denunciation and abuse on the witness, and all those who had a hand in bringing him forward, to thrust in, against all rule, such a story,—which, if true, had no more to do with the prosecution now in progress than the first chapter of the Alcoran. But it was not true. It was a monstrous fabrication. It represented as a fact what never occurred in all Christendom. It was stamped with falsehood on the face of it; and not only spoke for itself as such, but was a virtual self-impeachment of the witness, whose whole testimony the court should now throw to the winds. And so, for the next half-hour, he went on, ranting and raving, till the court, interposing, assured him that the witness' last story would not be treated as testimony in the case; when he became pacified, and took his seat.