University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
WOODCRAFT AND EVIDENCE.

The body lay, as I have said, flat on its back, with the
head down hill, and the feet toward the gray crag above.
The left hand was firmly clinched, but the right was wide
open. It was evident, in an instant, that the fatal shot had
slain him outright, for not a blade of grass was disturbed
around him; he lay, as he had fallen, as he had died, unconvulsed,
and without a struggle.

He must have been standing, therefore, with his face toward
the rock, when the shot took effect which slew him.

When Forester and Pierson came up, Harry was standing
close to the corpse with a small note-book and a pencil
in his hand; five minutes had perhaps elapsed since he
uttered that wild shout, and neither of the new-comers were
aware that he had stirred from the spot.

“Good God!” exclaimed Forester, “who is this?”

“Harry Barhyte!” cried Dolph, “sure's my name's
Pierson. Well—well! my dream's out!”

“Have a care,” cried Archer, sharply, as Frank began
to move restlessly about. “Don't stir a step. This ground
has got to be searched, step by step.”

The hunter, who had just picked up a long rifle which
lay on the grass beside the body, and was examining it with
a jealous eye, looked quickly up to Archer's face, as if to
catch his meaning. But all there was blank and inscrutable.

Again he looked to the rifle, the hammer of which was
down on the nipple, with the cap recently exploded; drew
the ramrod, tried the barrel, and finding it discharge,

shook his head, saying: “No, no, Aircher, 'tain't no use
sarching; he's done it his own self. God send it was by
accident, but I doubt it, sorely.”

“He did it not himself, Dolph Pierson,” replied Archer,
solemnly, “either by accident or intent.”

“It's his own rifle—fresh fired, Aircher—there hain't
ben but one shot fired since we came on the range, and
that's two hours, if it's a minnit, except those we fired. The
poor lad's warm yet. Sure as death the shot we heard did
the deed!”

“True, every syllable,” said Archer; “yet he did it not
—that is certain,” and as he spoke, he closed the book, in
which he had made several memoranda, and returned it to
his pocket.

“Are you in earnest, Harry?” asked Forester, all whose
mercurial spirits and quick life had passed from him at
that dread sight.

“In earnest!” exclaimed Archer, half indignant at the
question; “in most solemn and dread earnest!”

“He must be right, then,” muttered the old hunter; “but
I can't see into it, nohow.”

“See now, then,” said the other, solemnly—“and see
you, Frank, and what you see, that note, for it is evidence,
and on it hangs another life!”

“Look here!” and he pointed to the hole by which the
bullet had entered, nearly in the centre of the forehead, but
a little to the right, about half an inch above the inner corner
of the right eyebrow.

“Well.”

“And then here!” and, as he spoke, he kneeled down
and raised the head gently by the hair—the cap had fallen
off—and laid his finger on the spot, just above the roots of
the hair at the nape of the neck, where, after passing
through the brain, it had issued.

“I don't see,” said Frank, musing.

“But I do,” said Pierson, after a moment, during which
he had bowed his own head over the muzzle of his own
rifle, which he placed in several different directions, with
the butt on the ground. “He did not shoot hisself.”

“Why not?”

“If he had done so, with that rifle, the ball must have

come out of the back of his head at a point higher than that
at which it entered. It has come out two inches lower.”

“True, if it were accidental—but if intentional, might
not he have held the piece, from above, at arm's length?”

“Impossible! It is a four-foot barrel—no earthly arm
could have done it. What do you say, Dolph?”

“What you says. He didn't shoot hisself, neither accidental,
nor a purpose; and I thank God for't!”

“Amen!” replied Harry. “Now, look there!” and he
pointed to a freshly-cut white spot on the trunk of one of
the great pine trees, at about three feet from the ground,
directly in the rear of the corpse; “there is the bullet!”

Two minutes had not passed before the woodman had
dug the fatal ball out of the soft bark of the pine-tree
with the point of his knife.

“It's Barhyte's own bullet, too, Aircher,” said the hunter,
examining the deadly missile; “here's his own mark on't.”

“The deeper and more damnable the craft of the murderer!”
said Harry.

“The murderer!” repeated Forester.

“Ay! the murderer!” repeated Archer. “Now, kneel
down, Dolph, lay your eye to the level of that shot-hole in
the tree, and take your range past the collar of my coat,
as I stand at poor Barhyte's feet. I am a trifle taller than
he, but that's near enough. Now, old man, where does
your line strike? where was he shot from?”

The old hunter rose from his knees and gazed for a moment
wonderingly in the face of the young man.

“You're a merickle, you be! You knows iverything,
you do! I've said it, often; but I sees it now. Harry
Barhyte was shot by some one who stood at top o' the
Eagle rock, alongside the trunk of the tree with the knob
on't.”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Archer, gravely.

“As sure as that's the sun yonder!”

While this colloquy was going on, Frank knelt and
took the same eye-line, and saw that in effect the range
was true from the point where the bullet had cut the tree,
through the elevation of a tall man's head to a level about
five feet above the table-rock, close to the body of the white-oak

tree; and marvelling greatly at the strange sagacity
of his comrades, he kept his peace and listened.

“Would you swear it?”

The hunter paused. “I would!” he said, at last.

“Yet that is his own gun, and it was his own bullet that
killed him.”

“Some one must have changed guns with him.”

“When, Pierson?”

A light seemed to flash on the old man, for his eye kindled,
and he smote his hand upon his thigh.

“Twice!” he replied; “oncet afore he was shot, and
again arterward. We'll be on the trail of him afore ten
minutes. Ned Wheeler, you shall swing for this!”

“You have hit my very thought, Pierson,” said Archer.
“He must have come down from the rock after doing it—
yet I can find no track of him.”

“Let's try again,” said the old man; and to work they
went, and searched the ground almost foot by foot, but no
track could they find, except their own prints coming from
the westward, and those of the murdered man from the east.

“This is very strange,” said Harry. But at that very
moment Frank pointed to a piece of flat flag-stone, which
he had been contemplating closely for above a minute—it
lay about a yard distant from the dead man. And lo! upon
its dry surface, visible enough, was the “sable score,” not
of fingers four, but of five naked human toes, which had
left the print thereon of the dark peaty soil on which they
had last trodden.

“Right, Frank!” cried Archer, exultingly. “We will
have him now; and you will make a woodman!”

The clue once taken was followed easily; a large piece
of loose half-decayed pine bark lay on the ground at about
four feet from the flag-stone; it was lifted, and beneath it
were two distinct impressions in the deep loam of a naked
human foot, one coming, one returning. Other indications
were discovered, though less distinct than these, which
made it perfectly clear that since the death of poor Barhyte
a man had come from the Eagle Rock, and returned to it,
barefooted; concealing, moreover, the evidence of his visit
by strange, Indian-like expedients.

Harry again drew out his note-book, and showed to his

companions a rude map which he had already made of the
localities, with the exact positions of the rock, the body, and
the trees, and thereupon he now inserted the places of the
marked stones and foot-prints.

Forester and the hunter examined and verified it, and
then affixed, the former his signature, and the latter his mark.

“Now, Dolph,” said Archer, quietly; “you and I know
who the murderer is; but we have got one thing to do yet—
to prove it! and to that end you and I must take him, and
that to-day!”

“We can do't, Aircher!”

“And you must help us, Frank.”

“Of course, Harry, to the utmost—but I do not know
how I can, for it seems to me, as Dolph says, that you do
know, or at least see everything. How can I help you?”

“Do you think you can find your way to Timothy, and
the wagon?”

“I am not sure. I'll try though.”

“Look ye here, Mister Forester,” said Dolph, leading
him forward to the brow of the hill, and pointing out to him
a towering bare crag across the valley, “keep your line
stret to that 'ere, and it'll bring you out at the fork of the
road, where Tim's waitin'.”

“Have you got your pocket compass, Harry?”

“Here it is.”

“I'll set the line, and then all's certain. Now, then,
what am I to do?”

“Go, and find Timothy first; then follow the road half
a mile, and you'll come to a country store. Get help
there—buy a ladle, and a few pounds of lead—come hither
—melt the lead, take a cast of those two footprints, which
I have covered over again. Then take them, and the body,
and the rifle, down to the store, and wait until we come to
you. Use my name and Dolph's, and do not let them hold
an inquest until we come up.”

“Let me look at the rifle first.”

“Certainly; what of it?”

“I think I have seen it before.”

“Indeed! when?”

“This morning.”

“Ay!” replied Harry, catching his meaning on the

instant—“that was but a passing glance. You cannot be
certain.”

“I may be made so.”

“Well! time will show, and we have no time to lose,
not a moment. This deed had not been done twenty minutes
when I got here, for I heard the shot which did it, and
the assassin may well have been within earshot when we
reached the ground; he could not have been many hundred
yards distant, for all these stratagems must have taken
time. Now, if he have heard us, he will be desperate, and
may lie in wait for you, or try to intercept you. If he do,
shoot him like a dog, and I'll bear you out.”

“I have got two barrels here, and a good stout knife
too,” answered Forester, “and if I had none of them,
barehanded I would not fear a cold-blooded murderer—he
must be a coward.”

“But a cornered coward is a dangerous thing.”

“Be it so. I am on my guard. Fare you well.” And
he set off at a round trot down the hill, in the direction
indicated, and was soon lost to view among the thick trees
on the hill-side.

There was a momentary silence, which was broken, at
length, by the hunter inquiring in a low voice,

“What next, Aircher?”

“To hunt him by the foot-track till we find him.”

“And then?—”

“If we can follow him by the foot, I'll arrest him on my
own authority.”

“And I'll back you. Come.”

And leaving the fatal spot, they ascended the Eagle Rock,
where, on searching the circumference of the flat table of
stone where it was surrounded by soft grassy soil, they
easily found the track of a man's foot coming up to it from
the eastward.

“Run down, Dolph, and measure the dead man's shoe,
length and breadth, mark it with nicks on your ramrod—
be quick.”

This was done in the space of two or three minutes, and,
as was expected, the tracks were found to be different—
shorter and broader—they too were measured and marked.

Some minutes were spent, thereafter, but the pursuers of

blood could not discover any track leaving the rock, till, at
length, remembering the trick practised below, Archer
turned over a flat stone which lay on the soft mire of the
swaly ground, and there was the stamp of a booted foot—
the same boot.

“He's ben larned this by the Injuns in Floridy,” said
Dolph.

“Doubtless!” replied Archer. “But this must have
taken him many minutes. He cannot be far before us.
Ha! here's a foot-print not covered; he has thought himself
safe here. But I cannot see another.”

“He's tuk up the bed of the little stream!” cried the old
hunter, delighted at finding himself able to add his quota to
the discovery of the criminal; “and what's more, he's
travellin' up it still—see how muddy the water comes
down, and there hain't ben a drop o' rain to rile it these
three days.”

“Forward, then!” exclaimed Harry. “We have nothing
to do, but to follow it along till it gets clear again. We
have him now.”

And away they dashed as hard as they could run, following
the banks of the brook, which came down muddier
and more muddy, the higher they traced it toward the source
—they were gaining upon their man.

But ere they came to clear water, they met him unexpectedly
coming to meet them, face to face. He had heard
them, doubtless, as they crashed through the brake and
underwood; and, seeing the danger of being detected flying,
had resolved to brazen it out.

As they surmised, it was Ned Wheeler. Guiltier than
usual he could not look, for the assassin and the dastard
were ineradically branded on his vile features by the hand
of nature.

“You run hard to-day, my men,” he said, sneeringly.
“What are you chasing, anyhow?”

“Ned Wheeler, you!” said Archer, steadily, halting
within six feet of him.

“Chasing me!” said the ruffian. “You'll find that tough
work, I guess.” And he cocked his rifle.

“Edward Wheeler,” repeated Archer, “you are my
prisoner. I arrest you, for the murder of Henry Barhyte.”

The wretch turned pale as death, but still he raised his
rifle to the shoulder, and levelling it full at Archer's head,
cried, in a hoarse voice—

“Stand off, or by J—s you're a dead man!”

At the same instant Pierson levelled his piece too, exclaiming,
“Down with your gun, Ned, down with it, or I
fire!”

The coward's eye wandered from Archer to the new
speaker, and as Harry's quick glance perceived that he
wavered, he leaped in at one bound, and mastering his rifle,
which went off harmlessly in the scuffle, with his left hand,
caught him by the throat with his right, and tripping him
at the same time with his foot, cast him heavily to the
ground. The next moment he was disarmed, and his hands
were securely fastened behind him.

“It only remains, now, Dolph,” said Harry Archer, “to
take his back track to-the place where he left the brook,
and then we have the whole clue made good.”

“We'll do't,” said Dolph. “Come, Wheeler, you must
go along with us; so you'd as well go easy.”

“You'll live to be sorry for this,” said the wretch, doggedly;
but he shuddered as he spoke the words, for he
perceived the ability and perseverance with which he had
been pursued, though he could not conceive how he had
been taken.

The rest was easy work. The track was clear in the
deep mud of the swamp, and within twenty paces it led
them to the banks of the little stream, which had already
subsided into almost its natural clearness.

“Now, Wheeler,” said Archer, gravely, “it seems a
cruel thing to do—but we have no choice or help for it—
we must take you down to the place where the body lies,
and detain you there until assistance arrives to remove you
and it.”

“Don't be alarmed for nuthen',” answered the callous
wretch; “I'd jest as lieves set by Harry Barhyte's body
as anywheres else! Ef he be dead I didn't shoot him; my
gun hain't ben shot off-to-day; you can try it, ef you like.
I'll make you pay for this, I tell you!”

“Wheeler,” said Archer, yet more solemnly than before,

“beware! I tell you, you are committing yourself.
Who said anything about shooting? or how know you that
Barhyte was shot? I warn you. I was Barhyte's friend,
and I will be his avenger. I know you to be guilty, and I
will pursue you to the utmost; but no advantage shall be
taken of you. If you would take your only chance of
saving your neck, do not say one word, or answer any
question, until you have got a lawyer. Now, come on.”

And without farther words they led him back by the
very way along which they had followed him. They pointed
out his foot-prints to him, one by one, uncovering those
which he had concealed, and replacing the stones and bark
as before, and then they set him face to face with the dead
body.

That was a fearful trial, but the wretch bore it with a
degged hardihood, that in a good cause would have been
noble resolution. His features worked a little, but he gazed
fixedly on the face of the dead, and then said, in a quiet,
sullen voice,

“Ay! he is dead, but I did not kill him!”

“We shall see,” replied Archer, and leading away their
prisoner to the foot of the rock, and making him sit down,
they sat down themselves beside him, and patiently awaited
the return of Forester with aid.

Within an hour—so eagerly had Forester bestirred himself,
and such was the excitement created by the dreadful
tidings, in that peaceful neighbourhood—voices were heard
coming up the hill, and a few minutes afterward, Forester
appeared on the ground, followed by Timothy, carrying the
ladle and the lead, and half a dozen decent-looking farmers
and countrymen.

“Where is the body, sir?” said one of these, stepping
a little forward, with a small air of authority—it was the
coroner of the county, who was aceidentally present in the
store when Forester entered, and had accompanied.

“There, sir,” said Archer, rising from the place where
he was sitting—“There, sir, is the body of the murdered
man, and here is the murderer!”

No one had noticed the little group at the foot of the rock

till he spoke, all eyes being turned in the opposite direction,
and his words made quite a commotion.

“And pray, who are you, sir?” asked the coroner.

“I am Henry Archer, at present of New York—the person
who discovered the body, and who have taken the murderer,
whom I now deliver into your custody.”

“On what authority, or evidence did you arrest him?”

“On the authority which rests in every citizen to arrest
a felon taken in the fact, and on the evidence which I shall
show you.”

And in a few words he recounted the facts as they occurred,
pointed out the mute evidence given by the direction
of the shot, and the naked foot-prints coming and returning
from the rock, and then led the officer over the whole
ground, to the place where the prisoner was taken.

“It is all clear enough, sir. It is all as clear as day,” said
the coroner, “I can see that myself now that you point it
out. But it is all owing to you. Had any one of us found
that body, had any one man, I am bold to say, out of five
thousand, found it, he would have taken it for granted Barhyte
had killed himself, and the only question would have
been accidental death, or felo de se, and I fancy it would
have been the latter. And then the murderer would have
gone clear, and the murdered man been murdered doubly,
in his reputation as well as in his body. Pray, sir, are
you a lawyer?”

“No, I am not, sir,” replied Archer, with a smile.

“No, he ain't,” said old Dolph, “but he's a darned sight
better thing, he's the very best and 'cutest woodman I iver
did see.”

“To what, pray, do you attribute your own very singu
lar acuteness in this matter, sir?” persisted the coroner,
paying no heed to Dolph, but looking very eagerly at
Archer. “I never heard of anything like it in all my
life?”

“I am not conscious of anything so very particular about
the matter, but if there be anything, I can only attribute it
to a habit of observing closely, and, as my friend here says,
to the NOBLE SCIENCE OF Woodcraft!”

“It is very strange!” said the coroner; then turning to

Wheeler, who was in charge of a constable, “Now, prisoner,
we must look to this. Observe, you need answer no questions
unless you choose it. Constable, take off the boot of
his right foot.”

It was done, and lo! the foot was black with the very
hue of the mire around.

“Set his right foot in that foot-print!”

The prisoner turned as pale as ashes, when this mandate
was given, and struggled impotently to resist, but it was all
in vain. Point for point the naked foot fitted the naked
foot-print.

“Now take his boot up above the rock, two or three of
you, and try that. We will have all clear.”

This too was done, and in a few minutes three or four
witnesses returned, all ready to swear to the perfect coincidence.

“I think this is enough, sir,” said the coroner, turning
to Archer, “although your suggestion of the lead is an
admirable one, wherever foot-tracks, either of men or
beasts, are to be brought in evidence.”

“Quite enough, sir,” replied Archer. “I only intended
using it, in case of not taking the prisoner on the spot.
This actual comparison before witnesses is of course better,
because positive.”

“Tain't no use, none of it!” muttered the prisoner, doggedly.
“It's his own rifle that he's shot with; there it lies
now, alongside of him. Tain't likely, I could a' shot the
man with his own gun!”

The bystanders stared a little at this speech; and one
of them, taking up the rifle, said, “ 'Tis Harry Barhyte's
rifle, sartin!”

But just then Forester advanced, and asked to see
Wheeler's piece. It was given to him, and, after a single
glance at it, he said,

“We passed Wheeler on the road this morning; he was
carrying his rifle at a trail in his right hand, and the outer
side was toward me. I will swear that it was not this
rifle which he carried then; whether this be his own or no.”

“It is his own,” cried two or three voices from the
crowd.

“How can you swear to that, Mr. Forester? You could
have had but a very cursory view of it.”

“The rifle he carried had a brass-lidded patch-box in
the stock—this, which is said to be his, has none.”

“And Henry Barhyte's?” asked the officer.

“Has a brass patch-box!” answered the man who held it.

“Take him away, constable, take him away; and some
of you make a hand-barrow of some of these branches—you
have got an axe or two, I see, among you—and bring the
body down, will you not? To Dutch Jake's, you know,
that's the nearest public house; the prisoner and the body
both. You will attend there, gentlemen; we shall want
your evidence.”

“We are staying there for the present,” answered
Archer. “My wagon and horses are at the foot of the
hill; I can offer you a seat, if you will accept one.”

“I thank you, much, sir. Shall not I crowd you?”

“By no means. I will leave my servant.”

“No, Aircher, best leave me,” interposed Dolph. “I
must break up them ere does, and hyst them into the trees
till mornin'; the wolves'll git 'em else. And I'll bring
down a suddle with me. Don't be feared, coroner, I'll be
thar afore you've got your jury sot.”

“There is nothing to detain us any longer, is there?'

“Nothing.”

“Let us go then.”

A few minutes' walk brought them to the carriage, and
driving rapidly down the road, they soon reached Barhyte's
cottage. Here Harry pulled up, and giving the reins to
Forester, apologised to the coroner, who was a lawyer of
good standing in the county town, for detaining him a few
seconds, and entered the house, closing the door carefully
after him.

The most fearful suspicions were at work in his mind,
whether this woman, evidently in minor matters guilty,
were not in this last damning crime an accomplice likewise;
and, between his friendship for Barhyte, his resolve
to prosecute the matter to the utmost, his reluctance to injure
a woman, and some remains of lurking tenderness to
the young creature whom he had so often fondled when a

child, his mind was in a terrible state of anxiety and
turmoil.

The beautiful young woman, who was now very becomingly
and very coquettishly attired, evidently in expectation
of this visit, had heard the wheels, and was coming to the
door to meet him, when he entered.

There was a bright flashing glance in her blue eye, and
a smile of wanton invitation on her lip, as she addressed
her visiter.

“Henry has not come home, Mr. Archer,” she said.
“But you need not mind that, you can sit down, and talk
over old times with me till he returns.”

And she put out her small white hand to lead him to a
chair, as she spoke.

But he took it not, nor advanced, but stood still, and
gazed at her fixedly.

“No, Mrs. Barhyte,” he said in a slow solemn voice.
“Henry has not come home, and what is more, he never
will come home again.”

She looked surprised for a moment, and then tossing her
head saucily, “It is no great loss,” she said. “He has
run away, I suppose, Mr. Archer. He has been a lost
man these nine months past.”

“No, madam, he is dead.”

She gazed at him for a moment, and then bursting into
a sort of hysterical laugh—“Dead!” she cried; “Oh! you
are joking with me; dead drunk! you mean.”

“Indeed, I do not. He is dead! Shot dead, through
the brain. I found him.”

“Good God!” she exclaimed, turning ashy pale, and
glaring at him, as if her eyes would have started from their
sockets—“Good God! How terrible!” and then sinking
her voice into a whisper, she added, “Who shot him?”

“It was supposed,” he replied, “that he shot himself.
We were but a short way off, when the gun was fired—
there was but one—and when we found him, he was lying
on his back quite dead, with his own gun, just discharged,
beside him.”

“His own gun!” she shrieked; “his own gun! Oh!
villain, villain, villian! Can it be, that after all, you have
done this thing?”

“It can, indeed! nay, it is, Mary. He is a prisoner. I
took him, redhanded, in the fact; there is evidence enough
to hang twenty men; and he shall hang, or my name is
not Henry Archer. But I thank God, Mary, that you are
innocent, at least, of this.”

“Of this—of this—you did not believe, Archer, that I—
I—was a murderess?”

“I feared it, Mary.”

“My God! my God! to what have I fallen! What
have I done? how am I humbled?” She buried her face
in her hands, and for several minutes wept bitterly. At
length, and as it would seem by a great effort, mustering
courage, she raised her eyes to his, now melancholy and
subdued, and cried in a plaintive tone—

“Oh! you are good—you are good, Henry Archer. Tell
me, tell me, what must I do?” she paused; and then, an old
recollection of innocent and happy days breaking upon her,
she added, “What shall I do to be saved?”

“Repent!” the young man answered solemnly. “Repent,
and be forgiven.”

“I will, I will,” cried the beautiful sinner; “God help
me, I will!”

“God will help you!” replied Archer. “Now, tell me,
what know you of this awful business?”

“He—you know whom I mean, I will never name his
name again—pretended to be drunk last night, and carried
away Barhyte's rifle, and left his own in place of it. So,
Harry went out early, before he came—of course he was
late on purpose—and took his gun to hunt. Oh! my God,
it will kill me to think of it.—Harry! poor, poor, dear
Harry! how he loved me, and I—I—oh! what will become
of me!” and again she burst into a bitter paroxysm of tears.

“I must leave you now, Mary,” said Archer, kindly.
“Heaven keep you in your good resolves. I will return,
when they bring him home. Shall I”—he hesitated for a
moment—“shall I bring a clergyman with me?”

“Yes!” she cried, clasping her hands together eagerly,
“Oh, yes—God bless you for the thought, I will confess,
and be good, if I can, hereafter. Oh! Heaven bless you,
Mr. Archer!”

“Good-night, Mary;” and with the words he left the
room, and, mounting his driving-seat, took the reins, and
drove rapidly to the tavern, whither hot rumour had preceded
them already, and where the fat man awaited them,
half crazy between excitement and anxiety.

What need of many words?

If there were any, the excitement of my tale is ended.
The conclusion must be anticipated.

The coroner's inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful
murder was returned instantly against Edward Wheeler;
but the miserable wretch spared this world any farther
trouble with his concerns, or his crimes; for he contrived,
that night, to anticipate his doom, hanging himself by his
neckcloth from a clothes' pin, on the wall of the room in
which he was confined, previous to his removal to the
county gaol.

So resolute was he, even to the last, that, the peg from
which he was suspended being scarce six feet from the
ground, he fell on his knees, and so strangled himself, till
his was extinct. He died and made no sign.

Mary Barhyte did indeed repent, and gave proof of repentance
in an amended and secluded life; but she lived not
long, dying of what was called consumption, which is so
often but another name for a grieved and broken heart.

And, after she was gone, some palliation for her sin was
discovered in the fact, that she had loved, and would have
married Wheeler, when both were young and innocent, but
for her parents' opposition. She believed him dead when
she wedded Barhyte. The first lover returned — He was
wicked, she weak; he tempted, and she fell.

Judge not, that ye be not judged!

Archer and Forester returned home, for the time, much
saddened and subdued; and even Fat Tom neither swore
nor jested, on the homeward route.

In process of time, however, the dark shadow left on
their minds by these terrible events passed away, and left
them, as of old, light-hearted, joyous, and carefree; and
perhaps both felt somewhat raised in their own opinion, by
the feeling that, in circumstances requiring great exertion,

both of physical and moral courage, they had done their
duty.

Harry Archer loved not to speak of this subject afterward;
but whenever he did so, he was wont to cite it as a proof,
that there is not only much practical, but much moral
utilitv, in the Gentle Science of Woodcraft.