It was the body of Quilling, late landlord of the Eagle tavern. In his still open eyes was a look of abject terror, and a cry of pain and fear seemed to have stopped half uttered on his lips. From his head the scalp was missing, and where his hat still lay, and under the body, the snow was red with blood.
The crimson stain upon his clothing near the left shoulder told the manner of his death. A bullet had found his heart.
CHAPTER XIV.
CAPTURED.
“I’ll bet I can tell whose work this is!”
In an awed, half-frightened tone, as he looked upon the terrible scene, John spoke.
Ree was already on his knees in the snow trying to learn if there was not some spark of life remaining. There was none. The body was cold and in places the flesh was frozen hard.
“The lone Indian’s,” he slowly answered John’s remark. “Poor Quilling. The only wonder is that the wolves have not been here before us. It was Quilling who cried out for help, last night, John.”
“I suppose we will never know just what did happen, but it looks more and more as if a trap of some kind had been laid for us, now doesn’t it? And while Quilling and Dexter waited, perhaps, that prowling Redskin shot him. I only wish it had been Duff who was killed.”
As though they had talked the matter all over and agreed what they should do, though scarcely a word was spoken, the boys tramped up the hill to their cabin. With an axe and shovel they returned to where the body of Quilling lay. At the foot of a beech tree which they proposed to save, as the clearing of their land progressed, they laboriously dug a shallow grave.
“I would rather Mr. Hatch should know nothing about this, he is always so broken up by such things,” Ree said thoughtfully, as he leaned on his shovel, “but it does seem a pity to bury the poor fellow without a prayer or anything. Shall we tell the Quaker?”