A bullet extracted.
Not all of the searching party leave the place. Two remain, staying as by stealth. Some time before the departure of the others, these had slipped aside, and sauntered off several hundred yards, taking their horses along with them.
Halting in an out-of-the-way spot, under deepest shadow, and then dismounting, they wait till the crowd shall disperse. To all appearance impatiently, as if they wanted to have the range of the forest to themselves, and for some particular reason. Just this do they, or at least one of them does; making his design known to the other, soon as he believes himself beyond earshot of those from whom they separated.
It is the elder that instructs; who, in addition to the horse he is holding, has another animal by his side—a dog. For it is the hunter, Woodley, still in charge of Clancy’s hound.
The man remaining with him is one of his own kind and calling; younger in years, but, like himself, a professional follower of the chase—by name, Heywood.
Giving his reason for the step he is taking, Woodley says, “We kin do nothin’ till them greenhorns air gone. Old Dan Boone hisself kedn’t take up trail, wi’ sich a noisy clanjamfry aroun him. For myself I hain’t hardly tried, seein’ ’twar no use till they’d clar off out o’ the way. And now the darned fools hev’ made the thing more diffeequilt, trampin about, an’ blottin’ out every shadder o’ sign, an everything as looks like a futmark. For all, I’ve tuk notice to somethin’ none o’ them seed. Soon’s the coast is clar we kin go thar, an’ gie it a more pertikler examinashun.”
The younger hunter nods assent, adding a word, signifying readiness to follow his older confrère.
For some minutes they remain; until silence restored throughout the forest tells them it is forsaken. Then, leaving their horses behind, with bridles looped around branches—the hound also attached to one of the stirrups—they go back to the place, where the hat and gun were found.
They do not stay there; but continue a little farther on, Woodley leading.
At some twenty paces distance, the old hunter comes to a halt, stopping by the side of a cypress “knee”; one of those vegetable monstrosities that perplex the botanist—to this hour scientifically unexplained. In shape resembling a ham, with the shank end upwards; indeed so like to this, that the Yankee bacon-curers have been accused, by their southern customers, of covering them with canvas, and selling them for the real article!