When they arrived within sight of the place indicated by Hatfield as the spot where he had seen the revenuer's head disappear, the trio fell upon their knees, and crept cautiously along, with rifles ready and eyes alert. In a dense clump of laurel brush between two great dun rocks, they came upon a tan felt hat lying in a wide circle of dark blood. A few paces away lay a silver-mounted Winchester rifle. Lem knew the gun; the instant he laid eyes on the piece, he knew it was the property of Pete Burton, the revenuer. The front of the hat, just above the band, was slit open for six inches or more, as if cut with a knife. Lem's eyes glowed like fire-balls, as he examined the gun and passing it to Bud to carry, he turned upon Hatfield, who stood speechless eyeing the blood.
"Yo' said yo'd show me his daid body, Johnse—do yo' see hit?" Lem emitted a bitter, derisive laugh.
Hatfield's hairy visage was the picture of dumb bewilderment.
"Johnse Hatfield," began Lem solemnly, "could any man thet Gawd'll Moughty made human lose all thet blood and not stay heah, on thes spot?—eh? I kin tell from his hat yore bullet swiped em 'long th' forehead,—yo' hain't kilt em—yo'll never kill em—I'll never kill em—nobuddy'll ever kill em, Johnse Hatfield!—ef he wus a human bein' my pap would a got em 'long 'go—Johnse, when yo'-all kills a eagle yo' takes a bead on em pint-blank first, don't yo'?—sho'—yo' don't shoot at his shadder skimmin' along on th' ground under him, do yo'?—no. But when yo' shoot at this cussed revenuer yo' mought as well shoot at his shadder's fer's killin' him goes—he air a ghost. But I'll never stop tryin' t' git em anyways—I feel that I'll never git em—leastways hits soothin' t' be always a tryin'—cum 'long, Johnse."
They twisted in and out through the laurel and rhododendrons, between bald rocks, mighty and pigmy, and over crumbling logs coated with liverwort. Through walls of tangled thorn brush; out and along paths beaten by the wild razorbacks, and down, always downward, the three followed the erratic zigzag trail of blood for four miles. Down to the very water's brink of Boon Creek, where they lost it.
They traversed both sides of the creek up and down for miles with no signs of the lost trail. Hour after hour they searched until night came upon them, and they returned home, with the uncanny feeling that the wounded revenuer was likely to rise up out of the ground, or step out of the granite heart of some boulder at any moment.
At dawn the following day, thirty armed men gathered at the cabin. Lem spread them out, beginning at the canyon of Hellsfork, and they beat the rugged country systematically, working upward. Each day at sunrise they resumed the search where they left off until the eighth day, when they left all growth and foliage behind and came high up amid the naked, forbidding peaks of the range; precincts to discourage a mountain goat, much more a wounded man. They were rewarded with no signs of the revenuer.