He, sheriff, constables, crowd, stand with countenances expressing defeat—disappointment. They have reached the Choctaw Chief a little too late. They know nothing of Borlasse, or how he has baffled them. They but believe, that, for the second time, the assassin of Charles Clancy has eluded the grasp of justice.
Chapter Thirty Five.
A ghost going its rounds.
It is nearly a month since the day of Clancy’s death; still the excitement caused by it, though to some extent subsided, has not died out. Curiosity and speculation are kept alive by the fact of the body not having been found. For it has not. Search has been made everywhere for miles around. Field and forest, creeks, ponds, swamp, and river, have all been traversed and interrogated, in vain. All have refused to surrender up the dead.
That Clancy is dead no one has a doubt. To say nothing of the blood spilt beside his abandoned hat and gun, with the other circumstances attendant, there is testimony of a moral nature, to many quite as convincing.
Alive he would long since have returned home, at thought of what his mother must be suffering. He was just the man to do that, as all who knew him are aware. Even wounded and crippled, if able to crawl, it would be to the side of the only woman at such a crisis he should care for.
Though it is now known that he cared for another, no one entertains a thought of his having gone off after her. It would not be in keeping with his character, any more than with the incidents and events that have conspired to make the mystery. Days pass, and it still remains one.
The sun rises and sets, without throwing any light upon it. Conjecture can do nothing to clear it up; and search, over and over unsuccessful, is at length abandoned.