Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog Part 22

"Yes,--catch her sartain, now," he said, with a complaisant glance over his das.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sembled 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 fis.h.i.+ng, returned to the village about sunset, with the news that they had discovered, at the foot of the most dangerous pa.s.s 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 sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.semble, by the middle of the forenoon, to receive them, hear their report, examine the canoe, and take action according to the circ.u.mstances.

It was done; and this was the occasion of the a.s.sembling 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, yet it at length so enlarged on the vision that the form of a canoe and the gleam of flas.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 sh.o.r.e. It looks exactly as if a tie attached to some other canoe had been pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 ash.o.r.e 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 owners.h.i.+p, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e,--find where canoe hitch to sh.o.r.e,--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 ident.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstantial, yet, when taken in connection with Gaut's false story, and all other of the attending circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.d'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!"