“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 saple-skins in the lot
before him, which he felt confident he had seen among the furs of the
company, and he especially pointed out one strung together by a braid
of wickape bark. And in this last statement he was confirmed by Codman,
who, besides identifying one beaver-skin, had the same impression
in relation to the string of sable; but neither of them would swear
positively in the matter of the smaller furs.
Mark Elwood, the last of the witnesses to be examined, then took the
stand; and, contrary to what might have been expected from one of
his wavering disposition, and particularly from one who had been so
strangely kept under the influence and fear of the man on trial, bore
himself resolutely under the menacing looks which the latter fixed upon
him by way of intimidation. For some time he had utterly refused to
harbor the idea of Gaut’s guilt. He believed the burning of the camp
was accidental; that Gaut, in anticipation of the storm, had taken all
the furs home with him, and would soon call the company together for
the distribution. But when he heard of the course Gaut was taking, and
coupled it with the other circumstances, he suddenly changed his tone,
fell into the belief of his companions, and more loudly and openly than
any of them denounced the crime and its author,--seemingly throwing
off, at once and forever, the mysterious spell which had so long
bound him. Accordingly he now swore confidently to the beaver-skin in
question, as one of his own taking, and, facing him boldly, even went
so far as to declare his full belief in Gaut’s guilt, not only in the
burning of the camp, but in the stealing of the furs.
This gratuitous assertion of a mere matter of belief in the
respondent’s guilt, which was no legal evidence in the case, at once
aroused, as might have been expected, the ire of Gaut’s lawyer, who,
with fierce denunciations of the conduct of the witness, subjected him
to a severe cross-examination.
“What reason, then,” asked the somewhat mollified lawyer, now himself
incautiously venturing on ground which, with a better knowledge of the
parties, he would have seen might injure his cause, and on which his
client evidently wished him not to push inquiries. “What reason, then,
could you have for your extraordinary conduct in trying, against all
rule, to lug in here your mere ungrounded conjectures, to prejudice the
court and spectators against an innocent man?”
“Innocent?” here broke in Phillips, provoked by what, in his
exasperated state of feeling, he viewed as the cool impudence and
hypocrisy of the lawyer. “Innocent, hey? Well, well, there are various
ways of lying in this world, I see plainly.”
“What do _you_ know about my client, whom you are all conspiring
to ruin?” exclaimed the excited lawyer, turning fiercely on the
interposing hunter.
“Know about him?” retorted the other. “I know enough, besides this
outrageous affair; I know enough to----”
“Beware!” suddenly exclaimed Gaut Gurley, with a look that brought the
speaker to a stand.
“I don’t fear you, sir,” said the hunter, confronting the other with
an unflinching countenance. “But you may be right; it may be _I had_
better forbear; it may be your time is not yet come,” he added, in a
low, significant tone.
“Now, I will finish with you, sir,” resumed Gaut’s lawyer turning
again sternly to Elwood, from whom he--like many other over-acting
attorneys, who cannot see where they should stop in examinations of
this kind--seemed to think he could draw something more that would
make for his client. “When that fellow interrupted me just now, I was
asking what reason, besides some grudge or malice, you had for your
unwarrantable course in pronouncing the respondent guilty, without
proof; for, allowing the furs you swear to _were_ once yours, you don’t
show, by a single particle of proof, that he had any thing to do with
it more than yourselves, who were quite as likely to have taken them
as he. Yes, what reasons,--facts, facts, I mean; no more guess-work
here; so speak out, sir, like an honest man, if you can.”
“I will, then,” promptly responded Elwood. “You shall have facts, to
your heart’s content; I said what I did because I am convinced he _is_
guilty.”
“Convinced!” sneeringly interrupted the other; “there it is again;
thrusting in sheer conjectures for evidence! I must call on the court
to interpose with the stubborn and wilful fellow. Didn’t I tell you,
sir, I’d have no more of your guess-work? Facts, sir, facts, or
nothing.”
“Well, you shall have them, then,” replied the other, in a determined
tone, “for I know enough facts to convince me, at least, of his guilt.
Both before and after we started on our expedition, he threw out hints
to me which I did not then quite understand, but which, since this
affair, I have recalled, and now know what they meant. He hinted, if I
would fall into his plan and keep council, we might----”
“Might what?” sharply demanded the excited and alarmed attorney. “Do
you know you are under oath, sir? Might what, I say?”
“Might get all the furs into our hands, and----”
“Traitor! liar! scoundrel!” exclaimed Gaut Gurley, in a tone that
sounded like the hiss of a serpent, as he bent forward and glared upon
Elwood, with an expression so absolutely fiendish as to make every one
in the room pause and shudder, and as to be remembered and recounted,
months afterwards, in connection with events which seemed destined to
spring from this worse than fruitless trial.
“You was going to say,” said the attorney for the prosecution, here
eagerly pricking up and turning to the interrupted and now evidently
discomposed witness,--“you was going to say, he proposed that he and
you should take all the furs to yourselves, and so rob the rest of the
company!”
“I can’t tell the words; but I think he meant that,” replied Elwood, in
more subdued tones.
“O ho,” exclaimed Gaut’s lawyer; “you _now_ think, that is, you guess,
he meant something that you didn’t dream of his meaning at the time he
uttered it. Pretty evidence this; make the most of it!”
“We will,” said the opposite counsel; “and I request the court to take
it all down, together with the prisoner’s exclamations of _traitor_,
etc., which involves, indirectly, an admission that I shall remark on
in the argument. Yes, let all this be noted carefully. It is important.
It goes to show the previous design, which, coupled with the identified
furs, is, I trust the court will see, sufficient to fix the crime on
the respondent, beyond all doubt or question.”
“We will soon show you how much you will make out of your identified
furs,” rejoined the other lawyer, with a confident and defiant air.
“Have you witnesses to introduce on the part of the defence?” asked the
court.
“Yes, your honor; but our most important one has not yet arrived. We
are expecting him every minute.”
At that moment, a shout of surprise and laughter, together with an
unusual commotion in the yard, arrested the attention of all in the
court-room; and they mostly rushed to the door or windows to ascertain
the cause, when they were amused to behold the young Indian, Tomah,
driving into the yard, with his moose harnessed to a pung or sledge,
of his own rigging up, on which--with reins and whip in hand--he sat
as jauntily as a coachman, and almost with the same ease, apparently,
brought his strange steed to a stand before the door.
“Our witness has come!” exclaimed Gaut’s lawyer, exultingly. “Mr.
Sheriff, send out and bring him in. We will now dispose of this
miserable prosecution, in short metre.”
In a few minutes Tomah entered the room, and, readily
comprehending,--from a knowledge of the usages of courts he had
obtained during his residence in the villages of the whites,--what was
expected of him, now demurely advanced in front of the magistrate,
raised his hand, and received the oath of a witness. He was then shown
the lot of furs that had been identified by the hunters present, his
attention directed to the peculiar marks by which part of them had been
distinguished, and he was asked if he had ever seen these furs, and
noticed the marks on them, before.
“Yes, think so,” replied Tomah, quietly, as he rapidly handled every
large skin, and each parcel of the smaller ones, keenly noting the
palpable marks shown him on the former, and every tie confining
together the latter. “Yes; here bullet-holes on otter; slit on this
beaver; cropt ear on that; little fat back of fore-legs on rest of
beaver; wickape strings on that bunch sable; elm-bark tie on that; and
beech twigs on that. Yes, seen ’em all.”
“Where? And how do you know the furs? Tell the court all about it,”
said Gaut’s lawyer, as an exultant smile played over his sardonic
features.
“Well, now,” calmly and with his usual passionless cast of countenance
replied Tomah, after a considerable pause; “well, this lot of skins
all taken from the great lot taken by our company up round the great
lakes, this fall. I come back to settlement, three, four, five days,
may be, ’fore the rest; to see to moose, train him for Boston, and
make sled; wanted my part of furs to sell right off, to bear expenses,
and get off on journey soon. Mr. Gurley, then, after while, said he
venture to divide off to me greater part of what I would get for my
share of skins then got into the great camp. So he do it; and I take
my part, just this lot you show me here, and steer off with them to
Bethel; but, ’fore got quite there, come cross pedlar and sold them
cheap, for money, and go right back to Mr. Gurley’s, where moose was.
Found Mr. Gurley home, too; said he left all furs safe in camp; come
for provisions to carry back, to hunt one, two weeks longer; but storm
come, and he stayed to home, and soon heard all the men got home, too;
big storm, bad; I no start for Boston yet, but most ready; go soon, get
heap of money for moose, certain.”
The counsel for the prosecution and his clients--on hearing such a
piece of testimony from a witness whom they themselves would have
summoned, but for the belief that he would be so much under the
influence and training of Gaut, that little could be drawn from him
making against the latter--were taken so completely by surprise, by the
unexpected _denouement_, that they all sat mute and dumb-founded for
some moments; both lawyer and clients being scarcely able to credit
their own senses, and each hoping that the other had discovered some
flaw in the testimony, by which it could be picked to pieces. But no
such flaw or discrepancy could be discovered; and the testimony, after
the severe and prolonged cross-examination to which it was subjected
by the rallying and desperate attorney, remained wholly unshaken,
in every material part, standing out, in all its decisive force and
effect, for the exclusive benefit of the respondent. Every person in
the room, indeed, at length became convinced that the young Indian had
told the truth, and that he could know nothing of Gaut’s guilt, though
unconsciously made a witness in his favor; with the view, probably,
of meeting just such an exigency as had occurred in the present
prosecution.
The attorney for the prosecution, then, it being agreed to submit
the case on the testimony now in, made a long and ingenious speech,
abandoning the matter of the identified furs; dwelling largely on
Gaut’s dimly-hinted proposals to Elwood to join in the crime; and, on
the ground that he was the only person in a situation to burn and rob
the camp, raising the violent presumption that he must have perpetrated
the double crime.
Gaut’s lawyer then rose, with a confident and exultant air, and said
he might, with the best reason in the world, make a plea to the
jurisdiction of the court, since he had discovered that the camp which
was alleged to have been burnt was situated some miles within the
boundary of Maine; that no New Hampshire magistrate, of course, could
take jurisdiction of the case; and, that the respondent, on that ground
alone, must be at once discharged, if he wished it. But he did not wish
it. He courted a trial and decision, on the merits of the case; which,
after briefly urging the strong points of the defence, he submitted to
the court.
Tomah’s testimony had settled the case; and, though nearly every
one in the room, probably, were deeply impressed with suspicions of
Gaut’s guilt, yet all felt that the evidence was not sufficient for
a legal conviction. And they were not surprised, therefore, when the
court, after briefly commenting on the testimony, pronounced the full
discharge of the prisoner.
“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Gaut, with a laugh so inconceivably devilish that
his own lawyer, even, recoiled at the sound. “Ha, ha!” he repeated,
with a smile on his lips, made ghastly by the fires of concentrated
malice that shot from his eyes. “Wouldn’t my good friends, here, like
to try this game again?”
“Yes,” boldly retorted the hunter. “Yes, and we shall, with evidence
Heaven will direct us where to find. Your time hasn’t come. But it
_will_ come! God ain’t dead yet!”