"There was a laughing devil in his sneer,
That rais'd emotions both of hate and fear."
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 shire-town 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 sable-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 cases 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!"