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Updated: May 4, 2025
And it was not until Gaut, who, though thus suddenly brought into a dilemma which he was little expecting, was yet at no loss to decide on his course, that of making every possible effort to escape the more immediate pending danger, and then of trusting to chance for eluding the more remote one just brought to view, it was not till Gaut, with assurances of the last being but a miserable, trumped-up affair, had pushed and goaded him up to action, that the dumbfounded attorney recovered his old confidence.
Elwood had that day been abroad among the settlers, and, for the first time, learned not only that Gaut Gurley had moved with his family into the settlement, but that Claud was courting his daughter, and a match already settled on between them.
Men ominously shook their heads, and women and children began, in the connection, to talk in suppressed voices of the dark character of Gaut Gurley. At this juncture, word came that Gaut had returned, and had several times been seen about his home.
And they were not surprised, therefore, when the court, after briefly commenting on the testimony, pronounced the full discharge of the prisoner. "Ha, ha!" exclaimed Gaut, with a laugh so inconceivably devilish that his own lawyer, even, recoiled at the sound. "Ha, ha!" he repeated, with a smile on his lips, made ghastly by the fires of concentrated malice that shot from his eyes.
Here, low crouched behind his bushy screen, with rifle cocked and levelled at the entrance, he lay, silently awaiting the approach of daylight, expecting that Gaut would then, at least, be peering out to ascertain the state of affairs on the shore below. And the event soon showed the correctness of his reasoning.
Contrary to expectation, he declared he would have nothing more to do with Gaut Gurley; concerning whom he had seen something, about the time of the trial, to awaken his suspicions, and against whom he now evidently stood ready to array himself, with the rest, on the next occasion.
And, finding his still comparatively moderate expectations thus every day fully realized, he was satisfied with his condition in the present, and hopeful and happy in the prospects it presented in the future; for the demon of unlawful gain had not then tempted him into forbidden paths by the lure of sudden riches. But that demon at length came in the shape of Gaut Gurley.
Such were the circumstances under which we have brought this singularly-assorted party of trappers to the notice of the reader, as they lay sleeping in their bough-constructed tents, Gaut and Mark Elwood under one cover, and Claud under another, which he had fixed up for himself on the opposite side of their fire, on the ominous night which was destined to prelude the most tragic and melancholy scene of our variously eventful story.
It proved so in his case; and, to this natural incentive to persevere, was now added another, that of respect for her character, a respect which every hour's conversation with her enhanced, and which he might accord to her with entire justice. Gaut Gurley, like many other bad men, was proud of having a good daughter.
But, before naming the cause of their assembling and the objects of their present solicitude, we will leave them a moment for a brief but, for the understanding of the reader, necessary recurrence to what had transpired, in the interim between the departure of the two Elwoods and Gaut Gurley, and the present occasion. For nearly a month after her husband and son left home, Mrs.
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