"But there was weeping far away;
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim."
BRYANT'S MURDERED TRAVELLER.
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 reanimated wilderness. In the physical world,
all seemed light and laughing around:
--"the green soil with joyous living things
Swarm'd, the wide air was full of joyous wings."
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 aeolian 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,
"The summer is coming; rejoice ye, rejoice!"
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
reappearance 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 cortege, 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 Oquossak 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 same 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.
"Maybe,--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.