University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

It was the second week in May; and spring, delightful
spring, sweet herald of happiness to all the living creatures
that have undergone the almost literal imprisonment of one
of the long and dreary winters of our hyperborean clime, was
beginning to sprinkle the green glories of approaching summer
over the reänimated wilderness. In the physical world, all
seemed light and laughing around:

The sun, no longer feebly struggling through the dark, obstructed
medium of a northern winter's atmosphere, was throwing
abroad his clear, unstinted floods of living light, bathing
with soft radiance the diversified face of the basking forest,
and gleaming far and brightly over the soothed waters of the
sleeping lake. The mild and genial zephyrs were discoursing
the low, sweet, melancholy music of their æolian harps, among
the gently-wavering tops of the whispering pines. The choral
throng of feathered songsters were filling every grove, glade,
or glen, of field and forest, with the glad strains of their merry
melodies. And all nature seemed crying aloud, in the fulness
of her happiness,

So smiled every thing, animate and inanimate, in the visible
physical world, as circumscribed to this secluded settlement, on
the morning when opened the first scene in the closing act of
our story's changeful drama. But in the moral world, so far
as the interests and feelings of most of our leading personages
were involved, the skies were overcast with contrasted clouds
of doubt and darkness.

On that morning, at the Elwood Landing, on the western
shore of Umbagog, stood a collected group of excited people,
of different ages and sexes, gazing anxiously across the lake
in the direction of the great inlet, as if expecting the appearance
of some object or person from that quarter. But, before
naming the cause of their assembling and the objects of their
present solicitude, we will leave them a moment for a brief—
but, for the understanding of the reader, necessary — recurrence
to what had transpired, in the interim between the departure
of the two Elwoods and Gaut Gurley, and the present occasion.

For nearly a month after her husband and son left home,
Mrs. Elwood had been wholly unable to obtain any tidings of
them, or any information even of their locality on the upper
lakes. And gloomily, O how gloomily, with her, passed the
long and dreary days and sleepless nights of that dismal period!
Little had occurred to vary the monotony of her harrowing
anxieties; and that little tended rather to increase than relieve
them. For, even from the limited intercourse she had with
families of the settlers, — although their conversation, out of
regard to her feelings, was restrained and guarded, when the
subject nearest her heart was introduced, — she gathered the
fact that she was not alone in her fears and anxieties, but that
they were shared, to a greater or less extent, by the people of
the whole settlement; among whom the subject was being daily
discussed, at every fireside, with avowed apprehensions that
some fearful fate was awaiting one or both of the Elwoods, in
their sojourn in the forest, in whose dark recesses there would
be no witnesses to restrain the evil-doer from the purposes of

robbery and revenge which they generally believed he secretly
entertained. But, among all the settlers, no one had exhibited
so much anxiety and restlessness as the hunter, Phillips. He
had been almost continually absent from home, evidently to
distant places, but where and with what objects he declined to
make known. The direction and object of one of these secret
journeys, however, was inferred from the unexpectedly early
return of Fluella, the lovely maid of the forest, who had no
sooner reached her old home than she flew to the Elwood cottage,
to mingle her tears and sympathies with those of the
anxious and troubled matron; who, in the circumstances, could
have received no more acceptable visit. With the opening
of the season, also, other absentees had returned to the settlement.
Carvil had come back, to ascertain what had been
effected in relation to the supposed robbery of the furs, the fall
before, having intrusted his interests to the care of Phillips;
and now feeling, with the others, apprehensive for the result of
the new expedition, he was anxiously awaiting the return of
the absent trappers. Tomah, the eccentric young Indian, likewise
had surprised the settlers by his sudden reäppearance
among them, in a suit of superfine broadcloth, hat and boots
to match, gold watch, showy seals, and all the gewgaw etceteras
that go to make up the animal they call a city dandy. He had
sold his moose, it appeared, for four hundred dollars, and
brought nearly the whole of it home on his bedizened person, —
with the object, as he soon admitted, of dazzling the hitherto
obdurate Fluella.

“Yes, — catch her sartain, now,” he said, with a complaisant
glance over his dashing rig, on departing for the chief's, as
soon as he ascertained the fair object of his pursuit had returned
to her father's. But he soon came back, in a great miff, and
offered to sell the whole of his fine new outfit for just one half
what it cost him. Contrary to expectation, he declared he
would have nothing more to do with Gaut Gurley; concerning
whom he had seen something, about the time of the trial, to

awaken his suspicions, and against whom he now evidently
stood ready to array himself, with the rest, on the next occasion.

With these few incidents, April passed away, and the first
day of May, the usual limit of the fur season, had arrived;
but with it the absent trappers had failed to make their appearance.
Another week passed, and still they came not. “What
could it mean?” was on every tongue. Men ominously shook
their heads, and women and children began, in the connection,
to talk in suppressed voices of the dark character of Gaut
Gurley.

At this juncture, word came that Gaut had returned, and
had several times been seen about his home. A man was immediately
dispatched to Gaut's residence, for inquiries about the
Elwoods; but the messenger returned and reported that Gaut
said he parted with them on the Maguntic, — he to go over the
mountains to his home, on the Magalloway, and they, in their
canoe, that had been frozen up in Oquossak, the fall before, to
go to Bethel to sell their furs. Further than this, he knew
nothing about them.

“I don't believe a word of it!” exclaimed the hunter, who
with many others had anxiously awaited, at the tavern, the
messenger's return; “not one word of it! They would not
have gone off to Bethel after such an absence, before returning
home; or, if they had, they would have been here before this
time. But the story shall be investigated without twelve hours
delay. It is time we were moving in the business. Who will
furnish me with a good saddle-horse?”

The horse was furnished; and within half an hour the excited
hunter was speeding his way to Bethel.

He returned early the next morning, in a state of still greater
excitement and concern than before; having ridden all night, in
his anxiety to reach the settlement by the time people were
up, so that immediate measures might be put afoot to scour the
country in search of the missing Elwoods, whose continued absence
had now become doubly mysterious and alarming, by the

discovery he had made, as he feared he should, that they had
not gone to Bethel at all, nor been seen or heard of anywhere
in that direction.

The news of Gaut's return alone, his improbable story, and
the discovery of its almost certain falsity, spread like wild-fire
over the settlement; and the people, already prepared to believe
the worst by their previous suspicions of Gaut's evil designs,
rose up as one man, instinctively shuddering at the thought of
the apprehended crime, and feeling irresistibly impelled to attempt
something to bring about that fearful atonement which
Heaven demands of every man who wilfully sheds the blood
of his fellow-man. So deep and absorbing was this feeling,
indeed, in the present instance, that men dropped their hoes in
the field, left their axes sticking in the trees, and threw aside
all other kinds of business, and, with excited and troubled looks,
hurried off to the scene of action, to see, hear, and join in whatever
movement the exigencies of the case might require to be
made. And before night nearly the whole of the settlers, residing
within a circuit of a dozen miles of the surrounding
country, had assembled at the tavern in the rustic hamlet,
which, as before mentioned, they made, on all extraordinary
occasions, the place of their common rendezvous. Here, after
conversing a while in scattered groups, exchanging in low, hurried
tones, and with many an apprehensive glance around them,
their various opinions and conjectures, they gradually gathered
in one room in the tavern, formed themselves into something
like an organized meeting, and began their deliberations. But,
before they had settled on any definite course of action, their
attention was suddenly turned from the channel their minds
were all evidently taking, by a new and unexpected occurrence.

Two young men, who had that day been across the lake to
the Great Rapids, for the purpose of fishing, returned to the
village about sunset, with the news that they had discovered, at
the foot of the most dangerous pass of the rapids, wedged in

among the projecting flood-wood of the place, a partially-wrecked
and stove canoe, which they both recognized as the
one kept by the Elwoods at their landing last summer, and, of
course, the one they took away with them in their succeeding
fall expedition. This fact, all at once readily perceived, might
throw an entirely new aspect over the whole of the mysterious
affair; and they soon decided on dispatching the same young
men, at daybreak the next morning, across the lake, to examine
carefully both shores of the inlet up to, and some distance beyond,
the place where they found the canoe, to see if they could
find any thing else, or discover any indications going to show
that anybody had been wrecked and drowned there; then to
return, as quickly as possible, with the wrecked canoe in tow,
and whatever else they might find, to the Elwood landing;
where the company would assemble, by the middle of the forenoon,
to receive them, hear their report, examine the canoe,
and take action according to the circumstances.

It was done; and this was the occasion of the assembling at
the landing of the mingled and anxious group which we began
to describe near the commencement of this chapter, and to
which we will now return.

Foremost in the mingled group of people which we have
thus brought to view, was the agonized wife and mother of the
missing or lost men; whose doubtful fate was also engrossing,
though less intensely, every thought and feeling of the sympathizing
company around her. She had gradually worked herself
down to the extremest verge of the low shore, and had
unconsciously placed one foot in the edge of the water, as if
irresistibly drawn to the farthest possible limit in the supposed
direction of those two objects of her affection, who, alive or
dead, were still her all-in-all of this world; and there she stood,
slightly inclined forward, but motionless, mute, and pale as a
marble statue, with lips painfully compressed, and eyes, glazed
and watery, intently fixed on the opposite shore of the lake
to which she was looking for relief, at least from the terrible

suspense under which she was suffering. By her side, a little
back, stood the wife of the hunter, and two or three other
women of the vicinity, who had more particularly interested
themselves in her troubles, — some shedding sympathetic tears,
and some offering an occasional word, which they hoped might
in a slight degree divert her sorrows or console her in her anguish.
But, alike regardless of their falling tears and soothing
remarks, she gazed on, in unbroken silence, hour after hour,
taking no note of time, or any object around her, in the all-absorbing
intensity of her feelings. Little, indeed, was said by
any of the company. The younger portion stood in hushed
awe at the sight of grief in the older, and at the thought of
what might the next hour befall. And the men, though visibly
exercised by strong emotions, and occasionally revealing a
trembling lip or starting tear, as they glanced at the face of
the chief sufferer, yet offered scarce a remark to relieve the
pervading gloom of the sad and anxious hour. The whole
group, indeed, might have been taken for a funeral cortége,
awaiting on the shore the expected remains of some deceased
friend.

After standing in this manner till nearly noon, the company
caught sight of a scarcely-perceptible object on the water,
in the direction of the great inlet. And, although for some
time it appeared like a speck, as seen against the low, green
fringe of the opposite and far-distant shore, yet it at length so
enlarged on the vision that the form of a canoe and the gleam
of flashing oars became distinctly discernible. Soon a little
variation in the line of approach brought not only the canoe
and the rowers, but another canoe in tow, plainly in view; and
then all knew that their painful suspense was about to be ended.
Another half-hour had to be passed by the company, who still
stood there in trembling expectation, awaiting the approach of
the canoes; when, as the latter now came within hailing distance,
the impatient hunter stepped down to the water's edge,
and called out:

“What news do you bring?”

“None! but we have brought the canoe.”

“I see; but have you made no discoveries?”

“None whatever.”

“No caps, packs, or bunches of furs washed up anywhere?”

“No, nothing. We examined thoroughly both shores of the
rapids, and found nothing, and no mark or sign of any thing
about which any conclusion could be formed respecting the
manner the canoe got there.”

“But the oars?”

“We found them in the same flood-wood with the boat, and
they appeared as if they were thrown out of the canoe when it
struck.”

The canoe, which was the object of scrutiny, and which had
been injured much less than had been supposed, a break in
the upper part of the bow being the only ruptured part, was
now drawn up on the shore; when Phillips, Codman, and
Tomah took upon themselves to go into a minute and careful
inspection of every part of its outer and inner surface, together
with every appearance from which any inference having the
least bearing on the question at issue could be drawn by these
experienced and observing canoe-men.

“Men no leave oars in canoe, when go over falls,” at length
observed the Indian, standing back with the air of one who has
satisfied himself with an examination, — “no leave oars that
way; have them out to use; and then, when upset, drop 'em in
the river; where get scattered, go down, wash up different
places, mile apart, may be, — not together, right close side of
canoe, likely. Don't believe so much story, like that come to.”

“Spoke like a man who knows something,” said the trapper,
the next to offer comments. “And here is a loosened slip-knot
in the end of this bark boat-rope, which I have been looking
at. See! it has been drawn into a fixed knot, that hasn't been
altered since it has had considerable use and steady pulling
through it, as I see by the chafed bark inside the small hole

within the knot. The hole is too small to have been brought
into this shape by hitching it to a stake or projecting limb of a
tree on shore. It looks exactly as if a tie attached to some
other canoe had been passed through it, to draw this canoe
along by; and here is a slight mark of a knife, where that
tie has been cut out, owing to the difficulty of untying. This
canoe must have been hitched behind some other canoe, and
towed down to the head of the rapids, and there sent adrift.”

“Yes,” responded the hunter, who had been particularly confining
his attention to the outer and top edges along the sides
of the boat; “yes; and here is the moss or scurf that had gathered
on these upper edges, on both sides, during the snows and
thaws of winter, still remaining entire and unbroken, in every
part of this delicate weather coating, which even a thumbnail,
as you see, can't pass over without marring it or leaving a
mark. No man could have rowed this canoe twenty rods without
grazing these edges and leaving marks on them. Yes,
you are both right. This canoe, which I suppose you all agree
was Mr. Elwood's, has not been rowed since he left it hauled
up on the shore of the Oquassah last fall, to be buried by the
great snow-storm; and the Elwoods are both safe, for all being
wrecked and drowned from that boat, or any other, I presume.”

The countenance of Mrs. Elwood, who stood at some little
distance from the spot where the examination of the canoe had
been going on, but near enough to hear most of what was said,
visibly brightened at this announcement. The hunter saw the
expression, and a shade of anguish passed over his face, as,
turning to those immediately around him, and speaking in a low,
subdued, and commiserating tone, he resumed:

“I cannot find it in my heart to dampen the new-lighted
hope which this turn of the affair seems to give that poor,
wretched wife and mother. But, to my mind, all this makes it
doubly certain that the Elwoods have met with foul play. It
looks exactly like one of Gaut's devilish schemes of finesse, to

cause this canoe to be sent down the rapids, and be so found
as to lead folks to suppose the owners were drowned, and to
put the public on a false scent. Yes, friends, you may depend
there has been foul play, — I dare not guess how foul. I have
felt it the last fortnight, as if some unseen hand was writing
the dreadful secret on my heart. I feel it still, now stronger
than ever. And I call God to witness my resolution, that I
will know no rest or relaxing till I see the dark deed laid open
to day, and its infernal author brought to justice. Will you
all join me in the work, without flinching or flagging?”

The low but firmly-responded “Yes, yes, all of us,” told the
hunter that he would know no lack of efficient aid in carrying
out his resolution.

“Let us, then,” he said, “leave the women and boys, a few
minutes, and retire back here a few rods, out of their hearing,
to determine on the first steps to be taken.”

In accordance with this suggestion, the men withdrew, by
themselves, to a convenient place on the site of an old camping-ground,
within the forest, a few rods farther up the lake, leaving
Mrs. Elwood and her female attendants slowly retracing
their steps back to her house, from which they had accompanied
her to this spot, and the boys amusing themselves in seeing
who could throw a stone farthest into the lake. The men, now
relieved from the fear of causing Mrs. Elwood needless alarm,
and of having their remarks reported by others of the mingled
company, — to the injury, perhaps, of the investigation on hand,
— at once gave vent to their smothered convictions, and feelings
of indignation and horror, in an exciting debate; which soon resulted
in the determination to dispatch, the next morning, four
men in two canoes up the lakes, in search of the missing, or
such traces of them as might lead to a discovery of their fate;
while the rest should remain in the settlement, to watch for
new indications there and keep a vigilant eye on the movements
of the bold but wary villain, whom they all believed to
be the perpetrator of the supposed outrage. But, before they

had fully settled the details of their plan, their attention was
arrested by a shouting from the boys, who announced that a
strange canoe was approaching them from the other part of the
lake. Hearing this, and thinking the new-comer might have
perhaps arrived from the upper lakes, and could give them important
information, the men immediately suspended their consultation,
and came out to the landing to hail him, or to await
his approach. They soon discovered that the rower was an
Indian, and it was not long before the trapper began to recognize
the canoe, from some peculiarity about the bow, to be his
own, and the one he had left with the boats of his companions
on the Oquossak the season before. This, if true, might lead
to important developments; and the company kept their eyes
keenly fixed on the rower, to see if he would manifest any disposition
to avoid them. But he kept steadily on towards the
landing, and, in another minute, was within near hailing distance.

“Hillo! my red friend, where did you get that canoe?” cried
the trapper.

“Tell you soon, — you make me believe you right to know,”
quietly replied the native, without appearing to be in the least
disturbed by the question, or any inference which might naturally
be drawn from it.

“Well, I can make you believe I have a right to know, if
you are willing to believe; for I can swear the canoe is my
own, and prove it, too, by some of these gentlemen,” returned
the trapper, with warmth.

“May be, — we see soon,” responded the other, an intelligent,
good-looking, middle-aged Indian, now slipping ashore and
firmly confronting the company.

“Now tell us where you got it, sir,” again sharply demanded
the trapper. “I have offered to swear to my ownership, and
prove it; so tell how you came by it, unless you would have us
believe you stole it.”

“Stole it?” reproachfully said the Indian. “Ask that man,”

he added, pointing to Carvil, whom he appeared to have previously
recognized,—“ask him, if me do thing like that?”

“Moose-killer, is this you?” exclaimed Carvil, who had
been eying the stranger Indian with a hesitating air. “I
thought, from the first, I knew you, but couldn't quite decide.
Moose-killer, I am glad you have come. We are just at this
time trying to search out a dark affair, which we fear has happened,
and with which this boat you came in may possibly be
connected. We should be glad to make a few inquiries of you,
when you are ready to hear them. There need,” he added,
turning to the trapper and the others, “there need be no fear
but this man will tell a true story; I have met him on the
Great Megantic, where he goes by the name I have called him,
on account of his well-known expertness in moose-killing.”

The Indian started at the significant allusion which had been
made to the subject that was then engaging the attention of
those present, and its possible connection with his canoe; and,
with unusual promptness for one of his demure and slow-speaking
race, announced himself ready to tell his story.

“Moose-killer is about to speak,” said Carvil, looking round
on the eagerly expectant company. “We will all listen.
What he will say will be true.”

“Hear, in my country,” thereupon began Moose-killer, in
the abbreviated, broken, and sententious language peculiar to
the Red Man,—“hear, in my country, beaver bring more this
side the mountains; so come over, and been to Bethel-town to
sell 'em. Come over mountains, down piece, the river you call
Magalloway, — then strike off down to big lake, Megantic.
Then follow shore long way; but stop sudden, — start back!
See much blood on the leaves, — trail all along down to the
water. Then go back, look again, — find where man fall, bleed
much, — die, — lay there till dead quite. Man, because see
where hands catch hold of moss, leaves, — feet kick in ground.
All dead, because feet limber and no catch in brush dragging
to shore, — find where canoe hitch to shore, — dead man put in,

rowed away, sunk in lake, likely. Look all over ground again,
much time, — then come on long way, and find that canoe, hid
in bushes, — take it, go sell beaver,— then come here quick to
tell story, see who missing.”

We will not undertake to describe the intense excitement
which this brief but pregnant story of the Indian produced on
the company, who; though hoping to gather something from
him that might be of use in the inquiry on hand, were yet little
expecting a development so startling as this. They — especially
those but little acquainted with the Indian character—
could, at first, hardly believe that a story of such horrors,
if true, could be told so quietly, and with so little apparent feeling,
as the narrator had exhibited during his recital; and they
immediately subjected him to a long and close cross-examination.
Nothing, however, was elicited to weaken his story, but
some things to confirm it. Among these was a faint stain of
blood, which Moose-killer pointed out to the company, in the
bow of the canoe, and which was evidently but lately made;
while the size and height of the man, supposed to be murdered,
which the Indian judged of by a similar curious process with
that by which he reached his other conclusions, were seen to
correspond with the dimensions of the elder Elwood; who was
believed to be the man thus indicated, though it left the fate of
Claud still shrouded in mystery.

“Poor Mark Elwood!” exclaimed the hunter, with a sigh,
as they closed their examination of the Indian. “He is dead;
whatever may have become of his son, for whom there is still
some hope, he, at least, is dead! murdered in cold blood! and
who need doubt the identity of the accursed author of the
deed?”

“This is, certainly, something like tangible evidence,” responded
Carvil, whose former studies enabled him to speak
more understandingly, in the matter of legal evidence, than his
companions. “And, though it is still only circumstantial, yet,
when taken in connection with Gaut's false story, and all other

of the attending circumstances, it stands out most remarkably
significant against the man; and, even without any additional
proof, it would, I think, warrant us in arresting him.”

“In God's name, then, let it be done, before he escapes from
the country!” cried the hunter, with startling emphasis. “But
we must all keep the discoveries we have made to-day, as well
as the movements we may now make, as secret as death, lest
he hear of them and take the alarm.”

An earnest consultation was then held, and a plan of operations
soon adopted. By this it was arranged that Moose-killer
— who, when he had gathered what was known of Gaut Gurley,
and obtained a description of his person, entered into the
arrangements with an unexpected alacrity — it was arranged
that Moose-killer, Carvil, Tomah, and two of the settlers,
should start immediately up the lakes, in further search for the
body of Mark Elwood (whose fate was now treated as settled),
and, also, for a more general search round the two upper lakes
for his son, Claud; who, it was hoped, had by some means been
separated from his father, and suffered to escape, despite the
improbability that he would remain so long absent, if nothing
had befallen him. Phillips also concluded to accompany them
as far as the next lake above, to see the chief and his daughter,
to confide to them the discoveries of the day, and put them
on the lookout for further indications. The rest of the company
were to return quietly and separately, as far as could conveniently
be done, to the village, and there remain till after
dark; when two of their number were to ride, as fast as horses
could carry them, to Lancaster, for warrants, a sheriff, and his
posse, to be on the ground as early as possible the next morning;
while others were to proceed up the Magalloway, and lurk
round in the woods within sight of the house of Gaut Gurley,
as spies on his movements.

The company then separated on their several destinations;
and, during the remainder of the afternoon, nothing occurred
in the settlement which need here be mentioned, except the

secret and cautiously-made preparations for the proposed action
of the night, that, though imperceptible to the uninitiated, were
yet actively going on at the village. About sunset, however,
the hunter returned from his visit to the chief's; but in a state
of no little perplexity and concern, at an event which he unexpectedly
found had there occurred. This was the unaccountable
absence of Fluella, who, without apprising her father of
her intentions, had secretly left home several days before. As
the hunter had depended considerably on the girl's acuteness
and means of observation at the commanding point of her residence,
he was both disappointed and puzzled at her absence.
And, as he had been debating with himself, on his way across
the lake, whether he had not better call on Mrs. Elwood, and
take the first step towards gradually preparing her mind for the
worst, in regard to her husband, he now resolved to do so, with
the further object of getting her version of Fluella's absence
at such a juncture. Accordingly, he called at the house; and,
seeing the afflicted woman's entreatingly expectant looks, he at
once entered on his painful task by hinting his fears for the fate
of her husband; when, somewhat to his surprise, she cut him
short by sadly remarking:

“I know it all.”

“How? — what have you heard?” eagerly asked the hunter.

“I don't know it by what I have heard,” she replied, in the
same sad accents; “for I have heard less, perhaps, than you;
but I knew it would be so, from the hour he departed. And, a
few days ago, my heart received a shock. It was from the
same blow that killed him. Yes, poor Mr. Elwood is dead!
I have buried him! But my son Claud — O, my son Claud!”
The astonished hunter then told her of the singular absence of
Fluella; when, again to his surprise, she started up, and joyfully
exclaimed, “He lives! — though in danger, perhaps, he
lives, and I shall see him again!”

Wondering whether her reason was not unsettled, the hunter
departed, and hurried on to the village.