University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

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 snow-storm
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 manœuvred
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.
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 beautful plaints of England's gifted poetess:

“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, reresembling
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 opon 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 reäppear, 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.