“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.
CHAPTER XIX.
“What justice ever other judgment taught,
But he should die who merits not to live.”
Spenser.
About the middle of the afternoon, on the day next succeeding the eventful one which was marked by the occurrences narrated in the last chapter, a cavalcade of about a dozen men on horseback, followed by a single wagon, containing some fire-arms, two or three pairs of iron handcuffs, and a few other articles of luggage, came clattering down the road from the west, towards the tavern with which the reader has already been made familiar. The men, who had been dispatched for the shire-town of the county, had ridden hard all night, reached the place at daylight, drummed up the officers of justice, got them started at an early hour, and urged them on with such speed that, within twenty hours, they had arrived at the scene of action. After the halt of an hour at the tavern, for rest and refreshment, and a brief consultation with the settlers, the sheriff, and his posse, now swelled by volunteers from the settlement, set forth, under the guidance of Phillips, for the residence of the supposed criminal, calculating to reach there about dusk,—the hour they deemed most favorable for making the arrest. After proceeding in silence about two-thirds of the way to their destination, they halted, to make their final preparations and arrangements for the onset; when, knowing the great strength and desperate character of the man with whom they would have to deal, they first carefully prepared their fire-arms, and then detailed a half-dozen of their number, most conversant with the locality, to go forward, spread themselves around the borders of Gaut’s clearing, and cautiously advance to the house, so as to head off any attempt he might make to escape, when the main body made their appearance. All the time spent in these precautions, however, as well as this whole jaunt thus far up the river, was destined to be mostly lost; for, as the company were again beginning to move forward, they were met by the scouts, dispatched the night before, hurrying back, most of them in a disabled condition, and with the report that Gaut had escaped about an hour before. They had lain in their coverts all day, and in the fore part of it nothing had been seen to excite their suspicions; but, towards night, they noticed him cleaning his rifle and pistols, as near as they could judge, and then, soon after, bringing out a pack and placing it by the side of his rifle at the door; and scarcely had they time to concentrate before he came out, shouldered his pack, took his arms, and proceeded towards a canoe moored on the bank of the river. They then instantly resolved to intercept him; and, running for the spot, came up to him just as he had laid his rifle in the boat; when he turned upon them with the suddenness and fury of a pursued tiger; seized the foremost, who had laid his hands on the canoe, and, with giant strength, threw him headlong into the river; hurled the second with stunning effect on the ground; knocked down a third with his fist; leaped into his canoe, sent it swiftly across the stream, ran up the opposite bank, and disappeared in the woods, before they had recovered from their confusion, or thought of having recourse to their rifles to stop him.
“Slipped through our fingers and gone!” said the sheriff, with an air of chagrin and disappointment.
“Yes, for this onset,” said Codman, the next to volunteer remarks in the provoking nonplus in which they now all found themselves. “Yes, but I should like mightily to know how he got wind of our movements? If the devil didn’t tell him, I don’t think he done as well by his friend as he ought.”
“Perhaps,” rejoined the sheriff, after the laugh of some and the approving glances of others, which had followed the characteristic remark of the trapper, had passed away,—“perhaps he, or some of his family, caught a glimpse of these scouts round their clearing during the day; or perhaps he has an accomplice, or tool, whom he had engaged to watch public movements, and bring him word.”
“I have thought of some such thing, myself,” remarked Phillips. “In the case of his robbing our camp, last fall, I felt quite confident he must have had some accomplice, or some secret agent, to take off the furs for him. If he has such an one now, I think it must be a Jesuit priest, as I have heard that such a looking personage has, once or twice, been seen at Gaut’s house since he moved into the settlement.”