In loyal memory of this friendship, he has been making every effort to bring the murderer to justice; and one just ended accounts for his late arrival at the cottage. As on the day before, he and Heywood have remained behind the other searchers; staying in the woods till all these returned home. Yesterday they were detained by an affair of bullets—to-day it is boots. The same that are missing, and about which questions have just been asked, the last by Sime Woodley himself.
In answer to it he continues:—
“They not only kin be foun’, but hev been. Hyar they air!”
Saying this, the hunter pulls a boot out of his pocket, and holds it up before their eyes; Heywood simultaneously exposing another—its fellow!
“That’s the fut wear ye’re in sarch o’, I reck’n,” pursues Woodley. “’T all eevents it’s a pair o’ boots belongin’ to Dick Darke, an’ war worn by him the day afore yesterday. What’s more, they left thar marks down on the swamp mud, not a hunderd mile from the spot whar poor Charley Clancy hez got his death shot; an’ them tracks war made not a hundred minnits from the time he got it. Now boys! what d’ye think o’ the thing?”
“Where did you get the boots?” ask several, speaking at the same time.
“No matter whar. Ye kin all see we’ve got ’em. Time enuf to tell o’ the whar an’ the wharf or when it kums to a trial. Tho lookin’ in yur faces, fellurs, I shed say it’s kim to somethin’ o’ that sort now.”
“It has!” responds one of the jury, in a tone of emphatic affirmation.
“In that case,” pursues the hunter, “me an’ Ned Heywood are ready to gie sech evidince as we’ve got. Both o’ us has spent good part o’ this arternoon collectin’ it; an’ now it’s at the sarvice o’ the court o’ Judge Lynch, or any other.”
“Well then, Woodley!” says a planter of respectability, who by tacit consent is representing the stern terrible judge spoken of. “Suppose the Court to be in session. Tell us all you know.”