I’ve got a idea; a durned splendifirous idea! By the Etarnal, I kin make a good thing out o’ this. Well thought o’, Jeremiah Rooke; ye’ve hed a hard life o’t lately; but ye’ll be a fool ef ye don’t live eezier for the future, a darned greenhorn o’ a saphead! Oh, oh! ye young bloods an’ busters! I’ll make ye pay for this job in a way ye ain’t thinkin’ o’, cussed ef I don’t.
“What’s fust to be done? He musn’t lie hyar. Somebody mout kum along, an’ that ’ud spoil all. Ef ’twar only meent as a joke they mout kum to see the end o’t. I heerd shots. That must a been the finish o’ the anymal. ’Tain’t likely they’ll kum back, but they may; an’ ef so, they musn’t see this. I’ll tell them I carried the corp away and berried it. They won’t care to inquire too close ’beout it.
“An’ Dick won’t object. I won’t let him object. What good would it do him? an’ t’other ’ll do me good, a power o’ good. Keep me for the balance o’ my days. Let Dick go a gold gatherin’ his own way, I’ll go mine.
“Thar ain’t any time to lose. I must toat him to the shanty; load enough for my old limbs. But I’ll meet them a comin’, an’ Dick an’ the gurl kin help me. Now, then, my poor Pierre, you come along wi’ me.”
This strange soliloquy does not occupy much time. It is spoken sotto-voce, while the speaker is still engaged in an effort to resuscitate life; nor is he yet certain that Pierre Robideau is dead, while raising his body from the ground and bearing it out of the glade.
Staggering under the load, for the youth is of no light weight, he re-enters the trace conducting to his own domicile. The old bear-hound slinks after with a large piece of flesh between his teeth, torn from the carcase of the butchered bear.
The vultures, no longer scared by man’s presence, living or dead, drop down upon the earth, and strut boldly up to their banquet.
Story 1-Chapter VIII.
The Oath of Secrecy
While the black buzzards are quarrelling over the carcase, not far off there is another carcase stretched upon the sward, also of a bear.
But the grouping around it is different; six hunters on horseback and double the number of dogs.
They are the boy hunters late bivouacking in the glade, and the bear is the same that had strayed unwittingly into their camp.
The animal has just succumbed under the trenchant teeth of their dogs, and a bullet or two from their rifles. Nor have the hounds come off unscathed. Two or three of them, the young and rash, lie dead beside the quarry they assisted in dragging down.
The hunters have just ridden up and halted over the black, bleeding mass. The chase, short and hurried, is at an end, and now for the first time since leaving the glade do they seem to have stayed for reflection. That which strikes them is, or should be, fearful.
“My God!” cries young Randall, “the Indian! We’ve left him hanging.”
“We have, by the Lord!” seconds Spence, all six turning pale, and exchanging glances of consternation.
“If he have let go his hold – ”
“If! He must have let go; and long before this. It’s full twenty minutes since we left the glade. It isn’t possible for him to have hung on so long – not possible.”
“And if he’s let go?”
“If he has done that, why, then, he’s dead.”
“But are you sure the noose would close upon his neck? You, Bill Buck, and Alf Brandon, it was you two that arranged it.”
“Bah!” rejoins Buck; “you seed that same as we. It’s bound to tighten when he drops. Of course we didn’t mean that; and who’d a thought o’ a bar runnin’ straight into us in that way? Darn it, if the nigger has dropped, he’s dead by this time, and there’s an end of it. There’s no help for it now.”
“What’s to be done, boys?” asks Grubbs. “There’ll be an ugly account to settle, I reckon.”
There is no answer to this question or remark.
In the faces of all there is an expression of strange significance. It is less repentance for the act than fear for the consequences. Some of the younger and less reckless of the party show some slight signs of sorrow, but among all fear is the predominant feeling.
“What’s to be done, boys?” again asks Grubbs.
“We must do something. It won’t do to leave things as they are.”
“Hadn’t we better ride back?” suggests Spence.
“Thar’s no use goin’ now,” answers the son of the horse-dealer. “That is, for the savin’ of him. If nobody else has been thar since we left, why then the nigger’s dead – dead as pale Caesar.”
“Do you think any one might have come along in time to save him?”
This question is asked with an eagerness in which all are sharers. They would be rejoiced to think it could be answered in the affirmative.
“There might,” replies Randall, catching at the slight straw of hope. “The trace runs through the glade, right past the spot. A good many people go that way. Some one might have come along in time. At all events, we should go back and see. It can’t make things any worse.”
“Yes; we had better go back,” assents the son of the planter; and then to strengthen the purpose, “we’d better go for another purpose.”
“What, Alf?” ask several.
“That’s easily answered. If the Indian’s hung himself, we can’t help it.”
“You’ll make it appear suicide? You forget that we tied his left arm. It would never look like it. He couldn’t have done that himself!”
“I don’t mean that,” continues Brandon.
“What, then?”
“If he’s hanged, he’s hanged and dead before this. We didn’t hang him, or didn’t intend it. That’s clear.”
“I don’t think the law can touch us,” suggests the son of the judge.
“But it may give us trouble, and that must be avoided.”
“How do you propose to do, Alf?”
“It’s an old story that dead men tell no tales, and buried ones less.”
“Thar’s a good grist o’ truth in that,” interpolates Buck.
“The suicide wouldn’t stand. Not likely to. The cord might be cut away from the wrist; but then there’s Rook’s daughter. She saw him stop with us, and to find him swinging by the neck only half-an-hour after would be but poor proof of his having committed self-murder. No, boys, he must be put clean out of sight.”
“That’s right; that’s the only safe way,” cried all the others.
“Come on, then. We musn’t lose a minute about it. The girl may come back to
