WHAT THE GRAY WOLF SAW IN DEAD-MAN’S FOREST.
Little more remains to be told. When the gallant settlers, with the happy lovers under their escort, arrived at the settlement, they were joyfully greeted by their wives and daughters, Hettie among the rest.
The outlaws were nearly all killed, and were entirely exterminated from their haunts. To Hettie’s dismay, nothing was ever heard of Downing, he having not been seen since the hunchback had felled him to the ground.
Much more the surprise at the hunchback’s odd appearance and disappearance, and for a long time it was the subject of fireside gossip and conjecture, until a wedding occurred which forever banished it. It is needless to say who the parties were, nor how very gay the company was, nor how blushing and happy the bride, and exultant the groom—the intelligent reader has, ere this, suspected it. But, it is, perhaps, necessary to state that, in time, Hettie lost her unfortunate attachment for the robber chief, and, suddenly discovering that Eben was a fine young man, yielded to his suit and became Mrs. Jacobs.
And so, after so much hard trial and pain, these hearts were at last happy. We can do nothing more for them, as their cup of joy is complete, so we bid them all good-by.
The moon looked palely down from the zenith upon Dead-Man’s Forest; it looked down in its steely light upon the swamp in the forest—Shadow Swamp.
Truly was it named Shadow Swamp—for in its quiet, ghostly mazes, a shadow was flitting to and fro across a glade—a glade, in the center of which stood a tree—the terrible tree.
The shadow was that of a man—a cripple; and he was flitting in the midnight hour on some preconceived and arranged labor. Dry sticks he gathered from the glade and carried to the tree, depositing them at the base. After he had collected a large quantity he changed his task—bringing limbs and pieces of dry logs to his pile. Then, again, he changed—this last time bringing larger limbs and branches and small logs, which he arranged on the summit of the others.
When he had completed his task to his satisfaction he chuckled in horrible delight; then he disappeared.