“Heaven is helping me,” said Belt, impressively. “I feel that the end of this terrible wood drama is near at hand. I will tell my story here, and now! Silver Hand, you may lean against that tree, or trail the Night-Hawk. I care not which you do.”
The impatient Indian bit his lip, and leaned against the designated tree.
“Twenty years ago,” said Belt, looking at Harmon, “I lived beside the Mystic, in Connecticut. Not alone did I inhabit the little cabin, where now the stranger dwells. A wife kissed me then, and a babe was soon to cheer our childless home with its sunny smiles. How I waited for the new joy; but alas!” and a cloud leaped to the trapper’s brow, “alas! the devil came to our home. One night I returned from Saybrook and found an empty cabin on the Mystic. My wife—my Bessie—was gone!”
Belt paused, and, with face buried in his broad hands, he swayed to and fro like a storm-cursed tree.
“Mark Harmon,” he cried, suddenly removing his hands, “God alone knows how I loved her. She never knew herself, for humanity could not fathom my devotion and love. I sunk to my floor on the fearful discovery, and in the morning, a neighbor found me, but little less than a madman. Then my eyes were opened. I found several letters in the old house addressed to Bessie. They were signed “Ralph” and “Morton.” I put the two words together and had a name—“Ralph Morton.” For the owner of that name I hunted for eighteen years, almost; but I found no traces of him nor my wife. When I ceased to hunt, I had given her up for dead. I love Huldah, because she looks like Bessie did twenty years ago.
“Now I do see light. I feel that Levi Armstrong is Ralph Morton. God keep me alive till I can tell him so.”
“What would you do with him?” ventured the young borderman.
“What would you do, young man, with the devil who should snatch heavenly happiness from your heart?” said the trapper slowly.
“I would hunt him down and kill him!”
“That’s just what I am going to do,” returned Wolf-Cap through closed lips. “Some men might forgive such a wrong as mine, but I—never! Now for her, Mark Harmon, chief,” and the trapper started forward. “Oh Heaven! do not deceive me at this day—oh do not raise my hopes to dash them down into darkness, for Huldah must be my child, or I die!”