The civilians might have stayed; but friendship—even parental affection—must yield to the necessities of nature. Most of them had set forth without further preparation than the saddling of their horses, and shouldering their guns; and hunger now called them home.
There was no intention to abandon the search. That was to be resumed as soon as they could change horses, and establish a better system of commissariat. Then would it be continued—as one and all declared, to the “bitter end.”
A small party was left with Spangler to take up the trail of the American horse, which according to the tracker’s forecast would lead back to the Leona. The rest returned along with the dragoons.
Before parting with Poindexter and his friends, the major made known to them—what he had hitherto kept back—the facts relating to the bloody sign, and the tracker’s interpretation of it. As he was no longer to take part in the search, he thought it better to communicate to those who should, a circumstance so important.
It pained him to direct suspicion upon the young Irishman, with whom in the way of his calling he had held some pleasant intercourse. But duty was paramount; and, notwithstanding his disbelief in the mustanger’s guilt, or rather his belief in its improbability, he could not help acknowledging that appearances were against him.
With the planter and his party it was no longer a suspicion. Now that the question of Indians was disposed of, men boldly proclaimed Maurice Gerald a murderer.
That the deed had been done no one thought of doubting.
Oberdoffer’s story had furnished the first chapter of the evidence. Henry’s horse returning with the blood-stained saddle the last. The intermediate links were readily supplied—partly by the interpretations of the tracker, and partly by conjecture.
No one paused to investigate the motive—at least with any degree of closeness. The hostility of Gerald was accounted for by his quarrel with Calhoun; on the supposition that it might have extended to the whole family of the Poindexters!
It was very absurd reasoning; but men upon the track of a supposed murderer rarely reason at all. They think only of destroying him.