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"Gaut Gurley, you insatiate fiend!" exclaimed Elwood, in a tone of mingled anger and distress; "you it was who first led me into this accursed habit of play, by which you have robbed me of untold thousands yourself, and been the means of my being robbed of thousands more by others. You have brought me to the door of ruin before, and would now take all I have to save me from absolute bankruptcy."
Carvil rewarded these good-natured running commentaries on his person and supposed qualities, with a complacent bow; when the trapper turned to the other canoe, which, with Gaut Gurley and the young Indian described in a preceding chapter on board, now came within speaking distance, and sang out: "Hil-lo! there, you, captain, who made the big logs fly so like the de-i-vel, the other day, whether the old chap had any hand in it or not, what red genius is that you have brought along with you?"
The formidable desperado was pointed out to them; when, firing a volley over his head, to confuse without killing him, they rushed forward in the smoke, disarmed, bound, and dragged him along, to pass him down to their boat. As he was being urged across the deck, his eyes met those of Elwood. The recognition was mutual. It was Gaut Gurley!
As soon as they ascertained that Gaut had taken this stand, which only added to their previous convictions of his guilt, the different members of the company made journeys to the nearest villages or trading-places in Maine and New Hampshire, to see if any furs, answering in description to their collection, had recently been sold in any of those towns.
On rising the next morning, Gaut had proposed that Claud remain at camp that day, to build a better shanty, and hunt in the near vicinity; while he and Mark Elwood should explore the stream, to a pond some miles above, where his previously discovered beaver-haunts, he said, were mostly to be found, and where, the snow and ice having wholly disappeared, they could now operate to good advantage.
They had extended their outward journey more than double the distance contemplated by the Elwoods, at least when they left home; the mover of the expedition, Gaut Gurley, having proposed to make the shores of the Maguntic, and its feeding streams only, the range of their operations.
But still, when his thoughts wandered over the scenes of the past summer, which now, since trial and hardship had brought his mind back within the dominion of reason and judgment, seemed much more like dreams than realities, when he thought of the manner in which he became acquainted with Avis Gurley; how he persisted in gaining her affections, and kindling into an over-mastering flame his own fancy-lit love; and finally, how, against the known wishes of his family, and the dictates of his own sober judgment, he had urged her into an engagement of marriage, which he could now see had, as his mother predicted, in all probability led to a renewal of the intimacy between his father and Gaut Gurley, and that last intimacy to the present disaster, and a new quarrel, whose consequences might yet well be looked for with uneasiness and apprehension, when he thought of all this, he deeply condemned his own indiscretion, and could not help wishing himself clear from an engagement, which, like every thing connected with the schemes of that dark and dreaded man, who was now an object of suspicion through the whole settlement, seemed destined to lead only to trouble and disaster.
After all had voted, the hat was turned and the votes assorted; when it appeared that four votes had been thrown for Gaut Gurley and three for Mark Elwood, making seven in all, and showing that all the company had voted. "Well, friend Elwood," said Gaut, with a well-assumed air of indifference, when the result was seen, "shall I resign in your favor, or you in mine?
Elwood, pained and annoyed as she was by the part taken by Gaut Gurley, whose only motive she believed was to gain some advantage for meditated evil, entered cheerfully into the affair, and joined her husband in handsome expressions of acknowledgment to the hunter, and assurances of doing their best to provide properly for the company.
This story, with the accompanying proposal, presented, as Gaut well knew, the most tempting inducement that could be offered, to trappers. But it made no impression on Phillips and Codman. They deeply distrusted the man, his whole story, and the motives which they believed moved him to concoct it.
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