Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life

by Daniel P. Thompson

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?"