“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 reänimated 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
æolian harps, among the gently-wavering tops of the whispering pines.
The choral throng of feathered songsters were filling every grove,
glade, or glen, of field and forest, with the glad strains of their
merry melodies. And all nature seemed crying aloud, in the fullness 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 reäppearance among them, in
a suit of superfine broadcloth, hat and boots to match, gold watch,
showy seals, and all the gewgaw _etceteras_ that go to make up the
animal they call a city dandy. He had sold his moose, it appeared, for
four hundred dollars, and brought nearly the whole of it home on his
bedizened person,--with the object, as he soon admitted, of dazzling
the hitherto obdurate Fluella.
“Yes,--catch her sartain, now,” he said, with a complaisant glance
over his dashing rig, on departing for the chief’s, as soon as he
ascertained the fair object of his pursuit had returned to her
father’s. But he soon came back, in a great miff, and offered to sell
the whole of his fine new outfit for just one half what it cost him.
Contrary to expectation, he declared he would have nothing more to do
with Gaut Gurley; concerning whom he had seen something, about the
time of the trial, to awaken his suspicions, and against whom he now
evidently stood ready to array himself, with the rest, on the next
occasion.
With these few incidents, April passed away, and the first day of May,
the usual limit of the fur season, had arrived; but with it the absent
trappers had failed to make their appearance. Another week passed,
and still they came not. “What could it mean?” was on every tongue.
Men ominously shook their heads, and women and children began, in the
connection, to talk in suppressed voices of the dark character of Gaut
Gurley.
At this juncture, word came that Gaut had returned, and had several
times been seen about his home. A man was immediately dispatched to
Gaut’s residence, for inquiries about the Elwoods; but the messenger
returned and reported that Gaut said he parted with them on the
Maguntic,--he to go over the mountains to his home, on the Magalloway,
and they, in their canoe, that had been frozen up in Oquossak, the fall
before, to go to Bethel to sell their furs. Further than this, he knew
nothing about them.
“I don’t believe a word of it!” exclaimed the hunter, who with many
others had anxiously awaited, at the tavern, the messenger’s return;
“not one word of it! They would not have gone off to Bethel after such
an absence, before returning home; or, if they had, they would have
been here before this time. But the story shall be investigated without
twelve hours delay. It is time we were moving in the business. Who will
furnish me with a good saddle-horse?”
The horse was furnished; and within half an hour the excited hunter was
speeding his way to Bethel.
He returned early the next morning, in a state of still greater
excitement and concern than before; having ridden all night, in his
anxiety to reach the settlement by the time people were up, so that
immediate measures might be put afoot to scour the country in search
of the missing Elwoods, whose continued absence had now become doubly
mysterious and alarming, by the discovery he had made, as he feared he
should, that they had not gone to Bethel at all, nor been seen or heard
of anywhere in that direction.
The news of Gaut’s return alone, his improbable story, and the
discovery of its almost certain falsity, spread like wild-fire over
the settlement; and the people, already prepared to believe the worst
by their previous suspicions of Gaut’s evil designs, rose up as one
man, instinctively shuddering at the thought of the apprehended crime,
and feeling irresistibly impelled to attempt something to bring about
that fearful atonement which Heaven demands of every man who wilfully
sheds the blood of his fellow-man. So deep and absorbing was this
feeling, indeed, in the present instance, that men dropped their
hoes in the field, left their axes sticking in the trees, and threw
aside all other kinds of business, and, with excited and troubled
looks, hurried off to the scene of action, to see, hear, and join in
whatever movement the exigencies of the case might require to be made.
And before night nearly the whole of the settlers, residing within a
circuit of a dozen miles of the surrounding country, had assembled at
the tavern in the rustic hamlet, which, as before mentioned, they made,
on all extraordinary occasions, the place of their common rendezvous.
Here, after conversing a while in scattered groups, exchanging in low,
hurried tones, and with many an apprehensive glance around them, their
various opinions and conjectures, they gradually gathered in one room
in the tavern, formed themselves into something like an organized
meeting, and began their deliberations. But, before they had settled
on any definite course of action, their attention was suddenly turned
from the channel their minds were all evidently taking, by a new and
unexpected occurrence.
Two young men, who had that day been across the lake to the Great
Rapids, for the purpose of fishing, returned to the village about
sunset, with the news that they had discovered, at the foot of the
most dangerous pass of the rapids, wedged in among the projecting
flood-wood of the place, a partially-wrecked and stove canoe, which
they both recognized as the one kept by the Elwoods at their landing
last summer, and, of course, the one they took away with them in their
succeeding fall expedition. This fact, all at once readily perceived,
might throw an entirely new aspect over the whole of the mysterious
affair; and they soon decided on dispatching the same young men, at
daybreak the next morning, across the lake, to examine carefully both
shores of the inlet up to, and some distance beyond, the place where
they found the canoe, to see if they could find any thing else, or
discover any indications going to show that anybody had been wrecked
and drowned there; then to return, as quickly as possible, with the
wrecked canoe in tow, and whatever else they might find, to the Elwood
landing; where the company would assemble, by the middle of the
forenoon, to receive them, hear their report, examine the canoe, and
take action according to the circumstances.
It was done; and this was the occasion of the assembling at the landing
of the mingled and anxious group which we began to describe near the
commencement of this chapter, and to which we will now return.
Foremost in the mingled group of people which we have thus brought to
view, was the agonized wife and mother of the missing or lost men;
whose doubtful fate was also engrossing, though less intensely, every
thought and feeling of the sympathizing company around her. She had
gradually worked herself down to the extremest verge of the low shore,
and had unconsciously placed one foot in the edge of the water, as
if irresistibly drawn to the farthest possible limit in the supposed
direction of those two objects of her affection, who, alive or dead,
were still her all-in-all of this world; and there she stood, slightly
inclined forward, but motionless, mute, and pale as a marble statue,
with lips painfully compressed, and eyes, glazed and watery, intently
fixed on the opposite shore of the lake to which she was looking for
relief, at least from the terrible suspense under which she was
suffering. By her side, a little back, stood the wife of the hunter,
and two or three other women of the vicinity, who had more particularly
interested themselves in her troubles,--some shedding sympathetic
tears, and some offering an occasional word, which they hoped might
in a slight degree divert her sorrows or console her in her anguish.
But, alike regardless of their falling tears and soothing remarks,
she gazed on, in unbroken silence, hour after hour, taking no note of
time, or any object around her, in the all-absorbing intensity of her
feelings. Little, indeed, was said by _any_ of the company. The younger
portion stood in hushed awe at the sight of grief in the older, and at
the thought of what might the next hour befall. And the men, though
visibly exercised by strong emotions, and occasionally revealing a
trembling lip or starting tear, as they glanced at the face of the
chief sufferer, yet offered scarce a remark to relieve the pervading
gloom of the sad and anxious hour. The whole group, indeed, might have
been taken for a funeral cortége, awaiting on the shore the expected
remains of some deceased friend.
After standing in this manner till nearly noon, the company caught
sight of a scarcely-perceptible object on the water, in the direction
of the great inlet. And, although for some time it appeared like a
speck, as seen against the low, green fringe of the opposite and
far-distant shore, yet it at length so enlarged on the vision that
the form of a canoe and the gleam of flashing oars became distinctly
discernible. Soon a little variation in the line of approach brought
not only the canoe and the rowers, but another canoe in tow, plainly
in view; and then all knew that their painful suspense was about to be
ended. Another half-hour had to be passed by the company, who still
stood there in trembling expectation, awaiting the approach of the
canoes; when, as the latter now came within hailing distance, the
impatient hunter stepped down to the water’s edge, and called out:
“What news do you bring?”
“None! but we have brought the canoe.”
“I see; but have you made no discoveries?”
“None whatever.”
“No caps, packs, or bunches of furs washed up anywhere?”
“No, nothing. We examined thoroughly both shores of the rapids, and
found nothing, and no mark or sign of any thing about which any
conclusion could be formed respecting the manner the canoe got there.”
“But the oars?”
“We found them in the same flood-wood with the boat, and they appeared
as if they were thrown out of the canoe when it struck.”
The canoe, which was the object of scrutiny, and which had been injured
much less than had been supposed, a break in the upper part of the
bow being the only ruptured part, was now drawn up on the shore;
when Phillips, Codman, and Tomah took upon themselves to go into a
minute and careful inspection of every part of its outer and inner
surface, together with every appearance from which any inference having
the least bearing on the question at issue could be drawn by these
experienced and observing canoe-men.
“Men no leave oars in canoe, when go over falls,” at length observed
the Indian, standing back with the air of one who has satisfied himself
with an examination,--“no leave oars that way; have them out to use;
and then, when upset, drop ’em in the river; where get scattered, go
down, wash up different places, mile apart, may be,--not together,
right close side of canoe, likely. Don’t believe so much story, like
that come to.”
“Spoke like a man who knows something,” said the trapper, the next
to offer comments. “And here is a loosened slip-knot in the end of
this bark boat-rope, which I have been looking at. See! it has been
drawn into a fixed knot, that hasn’t been altered since it has had
considerable use and steady pulling through it, as I see by the
chafed bark inside the small hole within the knot. The hole is too
small to have been brought into this shape by hitching it to a stake
or projecting limb of a tree on shore. It looks exactly as if a tie
attached to some other canoe had been passed through it, to draw this
canoe along by; and here is a slight mark of a knife, where that tie
has been cut out, owing to the difficulty of untying. This canoe must
have been hitched behind some other canoe, and towed down to the head
of the rapids, and there sent adrift.”
“Yes,” responded the hunter, who had been particularly confining his
attention to the outer and top edges along the sides of the boat; “yes;
and here is the moss or scurf that had gathered on these upper edges,
on both sides, during the snows and thaws of winter, still remaining
entire and unbroken, in every part of this delicate weather coating,
which even a thumbnail, as you see, can’t pass over without marring
it or leaving a mark. No man could have rowed this canoe twenty rods
without grazing these edges and leaving marks on them. Yes, you are
both right. This canoe, which I suppose you all agree was Mr. Elwood’s,
has not been rowed since he left it hauled up on the shore of the
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 some unseen hand was writing the dreadful
secret on my heart. I feel it still, now stronger than ever. And I call
God to witness my resolution, that I will know no rest or relaxing till
I see the dark deed laid open to day, and its infernal author brought
to justice. Will you all join me in the work, without flinching or
flagging?”
The low but firmly-responded “Yes, yes, all of us,” told the hunter
that he would know no lack of efficient aid in carrying out his
resolution.
“Let us, then,” he said, “leave the women and boys, a few minutes, and
retire back here a few rods, out of their hearing, to determine on the
first steps to be taken.”
In accordance with this suggestion, the men withdrew, by themselves,
to a convenient place on the site of an old camping-ground, within
the forest, a few rods farther up the lake, leaving Mrs. Elwood and
her female attendants slowly retracing their steps back to her house,
from which they had accompanied her to this spot, and the boys amusing
themselves in seeing who could throw a stone farthest into the lake.
The men, now relieved from the fear of causing Mrs. Elwood needless
alarm, and of having their remarks reported by others of the mingled
company,--to the injury, perhaps, of the investigation on hand,--at
once gave vent to their smothered convictions, and feelings of
indignation and horror, in an exciting debate; which soon resulted in
the determination to dispatch, the next morning, four men in two canoes
up the lakes, in search of the missing, or such traces of them as might
lead to a discovery of their fate; while the rest should remain in the
settlement, to watch for new indications there and keep a vigilant eye
on the movements of the bold but wary villain, whom they all believed
to be the perpetrator of the supposed outrage. But, before they had
fully settled the details of their plan, their attention was arrested
by a shouting from the boys, who announced that a strange canoe was
approaching them from the other part of the lake. Hearing this, and
thinking the new-comer might have perhaps arrived from the upper
lakes, and could give them important information, the men immediately
suspended their consultation, and came out to the landing to hail him,
or to await his approach. They soon discovered that the rower was an
Indian, and it was not long before the trapper began to recognize the
canoe, from some peculiarity about the bow, to be his own, and the one
he had left with the boats of his companions on the Oquossak the season
before. This, if true, might lead to important developments; and the
company kept their eyes keenly fixed on the rower, to see if he would
manifest any disposition to avoid them. But he kept steadily on towards
the landing, and, in another minute, was within near hailing distance.
“Hillo! my red friend, where did you get that canoe?” cried the trapper.
“Tell you soon,--you make me believe you right to know,” quietly
replied the native, without appearing to be in the least disturbed by
the question, or any inference which might naturally be drawn from it.
“Well, I _can_ make you believe I have a right to know, if you are
_willing_ to believe; for I can swear the canoe is my own, and prove
it, too, by some of these gentlemen,” returned the trapper, with warmth.
“May be,--we see soon,” responded the other, an intelligent,
good-looking, middle-aged Indian, now slipping ashore and firmly
confronting the company.
“Now tell us where you got it, sir,” again sharply demanded the
trapper. “I have offered to swear to my ownership, and prove it; so
tell how you came by it, unless you would have us believe you stole it.”
“Stole it?” reproachfully said the Indian. “Ask that man,” he
added, pointing to Carvil, whom he appeared to have previously
recognized,--“ask him, if me do thing like that?”
“Moose-killer, is this you?” exclaimed Carvil, who had been eyeing 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.