University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

In the early part of an appointed day, about a fortnight
after the return of the imperilled and unfortunate trappers to
their homes, as described in the preceding chapter, an unusual
gathering of men was to be seen within and around a building
whose barn, open shed, watering-trough, and sign-post, showed
its aspirations to be a tavern, occupying a central position
among a small, scattering group of primitive-looking houses,
situated on the banks of the Androscoggin, five miles below
that lake, and where it might be considered as fairly under
way, as an uninterrupted river, in its devious course to the
ocean.

In the yard and around the door stood men, gathered in small
knots, engaged in low, earnest conversation; while, every few
minutes, some were seen issuing from the house and hastily departing,
as if dispatched on special messages, — the company in
the mean time being continually augmented by fresh arrivals of
the settlers, who came straggling in from both directions of the
great road, which, leading from the more thickly-settled parts
of Maine to the Connecticut, here passed over the Androscoggin.

Within the house, in the largest room, and behind a table,
drawn up near the wall at the farther end, sat a magistrate, in
all the grave dignity of a court, with pen in hand and paper
before him, as if in readiness to take such testimony in the
case on hand as should be presented for his consideration. On
his right sat Mark Elwood, Phillips, and Codman, appearing as

the representatives of the injured trappers or hunters, who
were the prosecutors in the case; while on his left sat Gaut
Gurley, in custody of the sheriff and his assistant, who had
arrested and brought him there to answer to the complaint of
the former. Gaut appeared perfectly unconcerned, glancing
boldly about him with an air of proud defiance; while his
former companions, the trappers just named, sat looking down
at their feet, compressing their lips and knitting their brows in
moody and indignant silence.

But, before proceeding with any further description of the
court, its parties or doings, let us briefly recur to what had
happened in the interim between the return of the trappers
and their present appearance in court, for redress for the outrages
that they supposed had been designedly committed upon
them, or at least for bringing to punishment the man who,
they felt morally certain, must be the perpetrator.

After the trappers had reached their homes, become fully
restored from the chill and fatigues they had undergone during
the terrible storm with which their expedition so disastrously
terminated, and attended to such domestic wants as demanded
their immediate care, they met at the house of Phillips, in
accordance with an appointment they made when they parted,
to report what evidence each might be able to collect relative
to the burning of their camp, and the suspected previous abstraction
of their furs; and thereupon to decide what measures
should be taken in the premises. Finding that Gaut Gurley
had been seen at home, or in the vicinity, some days previous to
the storm, and that he was not likely to come to them, they dispatched
a disinterested person to him, to notify him of their arrival,
and the condition in which they found matters at the store-camp,
left in his charge, and also of their wish that he would
attend their proposed meeting, and account for the catastrophe
which had so unexpectedly occurred. He pretended to know
nothing of the affair, and feigned great surprise at the news;
said he had left the camp and its stores, all safe, two days

before the storm, to come to the settlement for more provisions
believing that his companions would remain a fortnight longer
that, having procured his supplies, he was intending to return
to camp the day the storm came on; and finally that it devolved
on those last at the camp, and not on him, to account for what
had taken place. He therefore declined meeting them on the
business. As soon as they ascertained that Gaut had taken
this stand, which only added to their previous convictions of
his guilt, the different members of the company made journeys
to the nearest villages or trading-places in Maine and New
Hampshire, to see if any furs, answering in description to their
collection, had recently been sold in any of those towns. And
at length they found, in one of the frontier villages in Maine,
a small collection of peltries, which they thought they could
identify, and which the trader said he had lately purchased of
an unknown travelling pedlar, who, out of a large lot of peltries,
would sell only these at prices that would warrant the
purchasing. This small lot of furs they prevailed on the trader
to let them take home with them, for the purpose of making
proof in court. This was all the direct evidence they could
find to implicate Gaut; but they believed it would be sufficient.
For, at the meeting they then held, Mark Elwood found among
the furs a beaver-skin, that he could swear was of his own
taking, from a careless slit he remembered to have made in
the skinning. Codman found another, which he could safely
identify by a mangled ear which was caught in one end of the
trap, while the tail was caught in the other. And Phillips
found an otter skin, with a bullet-hole on each side, made, as
he well remembered, by shooting the animal through and
through in the region of the heart. On this proof they unanimously
decided on a prosecution; and accordingly Phillips
and Mark Elwood set off the next day for Lancaster, the shiretown
on the Connecticut, for legal advice, warrants, and a
sheriff to serve them. On reaching the place, they were told
by the attorney they consulted that they could not make out
larceny or theft against Gurley for taking the furs placed in
his trust, but for their private redress must resort to a civil
action of trover, or unlawful conversion of the common property.
A criminal process for arson, or the burning of the camp,
would probably be sustained. And the result of the consultation
was, that a complaint and warrant for arson should be
issued, and the arrest made by the sheriff, who should also have
in his hands a civil process returnable to the court of Common
Pleas, to serve on Gurley and his property, provided the proof
elicited at the court of inquiry on the criminal charge should
be such as to afford them any prospect of a recovery.

It was under these circumstances that Gaut Gurley had been
arrested for the burning of the camp, and brought before the
magistrate, who, with the lawyers employed on both sides, had
come to this place, as before described, for the hearing of the
case.

The magistrate now declared the court open, and directed
the parties to proceed with the case. The attorney for the
prosecution then rose, read the complaint, and briefly stated
what they expected to prove, to substantiate the allegations it
contained. Mark Elwood, Phillips, Codman, and the trader
who had purchased the furs of the pedlar, and who had been
summoned for the purpose, were then called to the stand, and
sworn, as witnesses on the part of the prosecution.

The trader, being first called on, testified to the identity of
the furs which had been produced in court with the lot he had
bought of the pedlar, as before mentioned; and he further
stated that the man had a large lot, which well answered the
general description given by the complainants of the lot they
had in camp; but where or how he obtained the lot, or who
he was, or where he went to when he left town, he did not
learn, and had no means of ascertaining. All he could say, was,
that these were the furs he purchased, and the only ones of the
whole lot on the prices of which he and the fellow could agree, so
as to effect a trade.

Phillips, next called, swore plumply that the bullet-pierced
otter-skin before him was taken by his own hand from the
animal he shot. He also added that there were several strings
of saple-skins in the lot before him, which he felt confident he
had seen among the furs of the company, and he especially
pointed out one strung together by a braid of wickape bark.
And in this last statement he was confirmed by Codman, who,
besides identifying one beaver-skin, had the same impression
in relation to the string of sable; but neither of them would
swear positively in the matter of the smaller furs.

Mark Elwood, the last of the witnesses to be examined, then
took the stand; and, contrary to what might have been expected
from one of his wavering disposition, and particularly
from one who had been so strangely kept under the influence
and fear of the man on trial, bore himself resolutely under the
menacing looks which the latter fixed upon him by way of intimidation.
For some time he had utterly refused to harbor
the idea of Gaut's guilt. He believed the burning of the
camp was accidental; that Gaut, in anticipation of the storm,
had taken all the furs home with him, and would soon call the
company together for the distribution. But when he heard of
the course Gaut was taking, and coupled it with the other circumstances,
he suddenly changed his tone, fell into the belief
of his companions, and more loudly and openly than any of
them denounced the crime and its author, — seemingly throwing
off, at once and forever, the mysterious spell which had so long
bound him. Accordingly he now swore confidently to the
beaver-skin in question, as one of his own taking, and, facing
him boldly, even went so far as to declare his full belief in
Gaut's guilt, not only in the burning of the camp, but in the
stealing of the furs.

This gratuitous assertion of a mere matter of belief in the
respondent's guilt, which was no legal evidence in the case, at
once aroused, as might have been expected, the ire of Gaut's

lawyer, who, with fierce denunciations of the conduct of the
witness, subjected him to a severe cross-examination.

“What reason, then,” asked the somewhat mollified lawyer,
now himself incautiously venturing on ground which, with a
better knowledge of the parties, he would have seen might
injure his cause, and on which his client evidently wished him
not to push inquiries. “What reason, then, could you have
for your extraordinary conduct in trying, against all rule, to
lug in here your mere ungrounded conjectures, to prejudice the
court and spectators against an innocent man?”

“Innocent?” here broke in Phillips, provoked by what, in
his exasperated state of feeling, he viewed as the cool impudence
and hypocrisy of the lawyer. “Innocent, hey? Well,
well, there are various ways of lying in this world, I see plainly.”

“What do you know about my client, whom you are all conspiring
to ruin?” exclaimed the excited lawyer, turning fiercely
on the interposing hunter.

“Know about him?” retorted the other. “I know enough,
besides this outrageous affair; I know enough to —”

“Beware!” suddenly exclaimed Gaut Gurley, with a look
that brought the speaker to a stand.

“I don't fear you, sir,” said the hunter, confronting the other
with an unflinching countenance. “But you may be right; it
may be I had better forbear; it may be your time is not yet
come,” he added, in a low, significant tone.

“Now, I will finish with you, sir,” resumed Gaut's lawyer,
turning again sternly to Elwood, from whom he — like many
other over-acting attorneys, who cannot see where they should stop
in examinations of this kind — seemed to think he could draw
something more that would make for his client. “When that
fellow interrupted me, just now, I was asking what reason, besides
some grudge or malice, you had for your unwarrantable
course in pronouncing the respondent guilty, without proof; for,
allowing the furs you swear to were once yours, you don't show,
by a single particle of proof, that he had any thing to do with it

more than yourselves, who were quite as likely to have taken
them as he. Yes, what reasons, — facts, facts, I mean; no more
guess-work here; so speak out, sir, like an honest man, if you
can.”

“I will, then,” promptly responded Elwood. “You shall have
facts, to your heart's content; I said what I did because I am
convinced he is guilty.”

“Convinced!” sneeringly interrupted the other; “there it is
again; thrusting in sheer conjectures for evidence! I must call
on the court to interpose with the stubborn and wilful fellow.
Didn't I tell you, sir, I'd have no more of your guess-work?
Facts, sir, facts, or nothing.”

“Well, you shall have them, then,” replied the other, in a determined
tone, “for I know enough facts to convince me, at least,
of his guilt. Both before and after we started on our expedition,
he threw out hints to me which I did not then quite understand,
but which, since this affair, I have recalled, and now
know what they meant. He hinted, if I would fall into his plan
and keep council, we might —”

“Might what?” sharply demanded the excited and alarmed
attorney. “Do you know you are under oath, sir? Might
what, I say?”

“Might get all the furs into our hands, and —”

“Traitor! liar! scoundrel!” exclaimed Gaut Gurley, in a
tone that sounded like the hiss of a serpent, as he bent forward
and glared upon Elwood, with an expression so absolutely
fiendish as to make every one in the room pause and shudder,
and as to be remembered and recounted, months afterwards, in
connection with events which seemed destined to spring from
this worse than fruitless trial.

“You was going to say,” said the attorney for the prosecution,
here eagerly pricking up and turning to the interrupted
and now evidently discomposed witness, — “you was going to
say, he proposed that he and you should take all the furs to
yourselves, and so rob the rest of the company!”

“I can't tell the words; but I think he meant that,” replied
Elwood, in more subdued tones.

“O ho,” exclaimed Gaut's lawyer; “you now think, that is,
you guess, he meant something that you didn't dream of his
meaning at the time he uttered it. Pretty evidence this; make
the most of it!”

“We will,” said the opposite counsel; “and I request the
court to take it all down, together with the prisoner's exclamations
of traitor, etc., which involves, indirectly, an admission that
I shall remark on in the argument. Yes, let all this be noted
carefully. It is important. It goes to show the previous design,
which, coupled with the identified furs, is, I trust the court
will see, sufficient to fix the crime on the respondent, beyond
all doubt or question.”

“We will soon show you how much you will make out of
your identified furs,” rejoined the other lawyer, with a confident
and defiant air.

“Have you witnesses to introduce on the part of the defence?”
asked the court.

“Yes, your honor; but our most important one has not yet
arrived. We are expecting him every minute.”

At that moment, a shout of surprise and laughter, together
with an unusual commotion in the yard, arrested the attention
of all in the court-room; and they mostly rushed to the door or
windows to ascertain the cause, when they were amused to behold
the young Indian, Tomah, driving into the yard, with his
moose harnessed to a pung or sledge, of his own rigging up, on
which — with reins and whip in hand — he sat as jauntily as a
coachman, and almost with the same ease, apparently, brought
his strange steed to a stand before the door.

“Our witness has come!” exclaimed Gaut's lawyer, exultingly.
“Mr. Sheriff, send out and bring him in. We will now
dispose of this miserable prosecution, in short metre.”

In a few minutes Tomah entered the room, and, readily comprehending,
— from a knowledge of the usages of courts he had

obtained during his residence in the villages of the whites, —
what was expected of him, now demurely advanced in front of
the magistrate, raised his hand, and received the oath of a witness.
He was then shown the lot of furs that had been identified
by the hunters present, his attention directed to the peculiar
marks by which part of them had been distinguished, and he
was asked if he had ever seen these furs, and noticed the
marks on them, before.

“Yes, think so,” replied Tomah, quietly, as he rapidly
handled every large skin, and each parcel of the smaller ones,
keenly noting the palpable marks shown him on the former, and
every tie confining together the latter. “Yes; here bullet-holes
on otter; slit on this beaver; cropt ear on that; little fat back
of fore-legs on rest of beaver; wickape strings on that bunch
sable; elm-bark tie on that; and beech twigs on that. Yes,
seen 'em all.”

“Where? And how do you know the furs? Tell the court
all about it,” said Gaut's lawyer, as an exultant smile played
over his sardonic features.

“Well, now,” calmly and with his usual passionless cast of
countenance replied Tomah, after a considerable pause; “well,
this lot of skins all taken from the great lot taken by our company
up round the great lakes, this fall. I come back to settlement,
three, four, five days, may be, 'fore the rest; to see to
moose, train him for Boston, and make sled; wanted my part of
furs to sell right off, to bear expenses, and get off on journey
soon. Mr. Gurley, then, after while, said he venture to divide
off to me greater part of what I would get for my share of
skins then got into the great camp. So he do it; and I take
my part, just this lot you show me here, and steer off with them
to Bethel; but, 'fore got quite there, come cross pedlar and
sold them cheap, for money, and go right back to Mr. Gurley's,
where moose was. Found Mr. Gurley home, too; said he left
all furs safe in camp; come for provisions to carry back, to
hunt one, two weeks longer; but storm come, and he stayed to

home, and soon heard all the men got home, too; big storm, bad;
I no start for Boston yet, but most ready; go soon, get heap
of money for moose, certain.”

The counsel for the prosecution and his clients—on hearing
such a piece of testimony from a witness whom they themselves
would have summoned, but for the belief that he would be so
much under the influence and training of Gaut, that little could
be drawn from him making against the latter — were taken so
completely by surprise, by the unexpected denouement, that
they all sat mute and dumb-founded for some moments; both
lawyer and clients being scarcely able to credit their own
senses, and each hoping that the other had discovered some
flaw in the testimony, by which it could be picked to pieces.
But no such flaw or discrepancy could be discovered; and the
testimony, after the severe and prolonged cross-examination to
which it was subjected by the rallying and desperate attorney,
remained wholly unshaken, in every material part, standing out,
in all its decisive force and effect, for the exclusive benefit of
the respondent. Every person in the room, indeed, at length
became convinced that the young Indian had told the truth,
and that he could know nothing of Gaut's guilt, though unconciously
made a witness in his favor; with the view, probably,
of meeting just such an exigency as had occurred in the present
prosecution.

The attorney for the prosecution, then, it being agreed to
submit the case on the testimony now in, made a long and ingenious
speech, abandoning the matter of the identified furs;
dwelling largely on Gaut's dimly-hinted proposals to Elwood to
join in the crime; and, on the ground that he was the only
person in a situation to burn and rob the camp, raising the
violent presumption that he must have perpetrated the double
crime.

Gaut's lawyer then rose, with a confident and exultant air,
and said he might, with the best reason in the world, make a
plea to the jurisdiction of the court, since he had discovered

that the camp which was alleged to have been burnt was situated
some miles within the boundary of Maine; that no New
Hampshire magistrate, of course, could take jurisdiction of the
case; and, that the respondent, on that ground alone, must be
at once discharged, if he wished it. But he did not wish it.
He courted a trial and decision, on the merits of the case;
which, after briefly urging the strong points of the defence, he
submitted to the court.

Tomah's testimony had settled the case; and, though nearly
every one in the room, probably, were deeply impressed with
suspicions of Gaut's guilt, yet all felt that the evidence was not
sufficient for a legal conviction. And they were not surprised,
therefore, when the court, after briefly commenting on the testimony,
pronounced the full discharge of the prisoner.

“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Gaut, with a laugh so inconceivably
devilish that his own lawyer, even, recoiled at the sound. “Ha,
ha!” he repeated, with a smile on his lips, made ghastly by the
fires of concentrated malice that shot from his eyes. “Wouldn't
my good friends, here, like to try this game again?”

“Yes,” boldly retorted the hunter. “Yes, and we shall, with
evidence Heaven will direct us where to find. Your time hasn't
come. But it will come! God ain't dead yet!”