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 see what’s keeping him, or old Rook, himself, may be straying that way, or somebody else travelling along the trace. Come on.”

“Stay,” exclaimed Randall. “There’s something yet – something that should be done before any chance separates us.”

“What is it?”

“We’re all alike in this ugly business – in the same boat. It don’t matter who contrived it, or who fixed the rope. We all agreed to it. Is that not so?”

“Yes, all. I for one acknowledge it.”

“And I!”

All six give their assent, showing at least loyalty to one another.

“Well, then,” continues Randall, “we must be true to each other. We must swear it, and now, before going further. I propose we all take an oath.”

“We’ll do that. You, Randall, you repeat it over, and we’ll follow you.”

“Head your horses round, then, face to face.”

The horses are drawn into a circle, their heads together, with muzzles almost touching.

Randall proceeds, the rest repeating after him.

“We swear, each and every one of us, never to make known by act, word, or deed, the way in which the half-breed Indian, called Choc, came by his death, and we mutually promise never to divulge the circumstances connected with that affair, even if called upon in a court of law; and, finally, we swear to be true to each other in keeping this promise until death.”

“Now,” says Brandon, as soon as the six young scoundrels have shaken hands over their abominable compact, “let us on, and put the Indian out of sight. I know a pool close by, deep enough to drown him. If he do get discovered, that will look better than hanging.”

There is no reply to this astute proposal; and though it helps to allay their apprehensions, they advance in solemn silence towards the scene of their deserted bivouac.

There is not one of them who does not dread to go back in that glade, so lately gay with their rude roystering; not one who would not give the horse he is riding and the gun he carries in his hand, never to have entered it.

But the dark deed has been done, and another must needs be accomplished to conceal it.

Story 1-Chapter IX.
A Compulsory Compact

Heavy with apprehension, rather than remorse for their crime, the six hunters ride on towards the clearing.

They avoid the travelled track, lest they may meet some one upon it, and approach through the thick timber.

Guiding their horses, so as to make the least noise, and keeping the hounds in check, they advance slowly and with caution.

Some of the less courageous are reluctant to proceed, fearing the spectacle that is before them.

Even the loud-talking Slaughter would gladly give up the newly-conceived design, but for the manifest danger of leaving it undone.

Near the edge of the opening, still screened from their view by the interposing trunks and cane-culms, they again halt, and hold council – this time speaking in whispers.

“We should not all go forward,” suggests the son of the tavern-keeper. “Better only one or two at first, to see how the land lies.”

“That would be better,” chimes in Spence.

“Who’ll go, then?”

Buck and Brandon are pointed out by the eyes of the others resting upon them. These two have been leaders throughout the whole affair. Without showing poltroon, they cannot hang back now.

They volunteer for the duty, but not without show of reluctance. It is anything but agreeable.

“Let’s leave our horses. We’ll be better without them. If there’s any one on the ground, we can steal back without being seen.”

It is the young planter’s proposition, and Buck consents to it.

They slip out of their saddles, pass the bridles to two of those who stay behind, and then, like a couple of cougars stealing upon the unsuspicious fawn, silently make their way through the underwood.

The clearing is soon under their eyes, with all it contains.

There is the carcase of the bear, black with buzzards, and the skin still hanging from the tree.

But the object of horror they expected to see hanging upon another tree is not there. That sight is spared them.

There is no body on the branch, no corpse underneath it. Living or dead, the Indian is gone.

His absence is far from re-assuring them; the more so as, on scanning the branch, they perceive, still suspended from it, a piece of the rope they had so adroitly set to ensnare him.

Even across the glade they can see that it has been severed with the clean cut of a knife, instead of, as they could have wished, given way under its weight.

Who could have cut the rope? Himself? Impossible! Where was the hand to have done it? He had none to spare for such a purpose. Happy for them to have thought that he had.

They skulk around the glade to get nearer, still going by stealth, and in silence. The buzzards perceive them, and though dull birds, reluctant to leave their foul feast, they fly up with a fright. Something in the air of the two stalkers seemed to startle them, as if they too knew them to have been guilty of a crime.

“Yes, the rope’s been cut, that’s sartin,” says Buck, us they stand under it. “A clean wheep o’ a knife blade. Who the divvel cud a done it?”

“I can’t think,” answers the young planter, reflecting. “As like as not old Jerry Rook, or it might have been a stray traveller.”

“Whoever it was, I hope the cuss came in time; if not – ”

“If not, we’re in for it. Bless’d if I wouldn’t liked it better to’ve found him hanging; there might have been some chance of hiding him out of the way. But now, if he’s been dropped upon dead, we’re done for. Whoever found him will know all about it. Lena Rook knew we were here, and her sweet lips can’t be shut, I suppose. If’t had been only Rook himself, the old scoundrel, there might have been a chance. Money would go a long ways with him; and I’m prepared – so would we all be – to buy his silence.”

“Lucky you riddy for that, Mister Alfred Brandon. That’s jest what Rook, ‘the old scoundrel,’ wants, and jess the very thing he means to insist upon hevin’. Now name your price.”

If a dead body had dropped down from the branch above them it could not have startled the two culprits more than did the living form of Jerry Rook, as it came gliding out of the thick cane close by the stem of the tree.

“You, Jerry Rook!” exclaim both together, and in a tone that came trembling through their teeth. “You here?”

“I’m hyar, gentlemen; an’ jess in time, seeing as ye wanted me. Now, name yur price; or, shall I fix it for ye? ’Tain’t no use ’fectin’ innercence o’ what I mean; ye both know cleer enuf, an’ so do this chile, all ’beout it. Ye’ve hanged young Pierre Robideau, as lived with me at my shanty.”

“We did not.”

“Ye did; hanged him by the neck till he war dead, as the judges say. I kim hyar by chance, an’ cut him down; but not till ’twar too late.”

“Is that true, Rook? Are you speaking the truth? Did you find him dead?”

“Dead as a buck arter gittin’ a bullet from Jerry Rook’s rifle. If ye don’t b’lieve it, maybe you’d step down to my shanty, and see him streeched out.”

“No, no. But we didn’t do it; we didn’t intend it, by Heaven!”

“No swarin’, young fellars. I don’t care what your intentions war; ye’ve done the deed. I seed how it war, and all abeout it; ye hung him up for sport – pretty sport that war – an’ ye rud off, forgitting all abeout him. Yur sport hev been his death.”

“My God! we are sorry to hear it. We had no thought of such a thing. A bear came along, and set the hounds up.”

“Oh, a bar, war it? I thort so. An’ ye tuk arter the bar, and let the poor young fellar swing?”

“It is true; we can’t deny it. We had no intention of what has happened; we thought only of the bear.”

“Wal, now, ye’ll have to think o’ something else. What d’ye intend doin’?”

“It’s a terrible ugly affair. We’re very sorry.”

“No doubt ye air, an’ ye’d be a precious sight sorrier of the young fellar had any kinfolk to look arter it, and call ye to account. As it be, there ain’t nobody but me – and he warn’t no kin o’ mine – only a stayin’ wi’ me, that may make it easier for you.”

“But, what have you done with – the – the body?”

Brandon asks the question hesitatingly, and thinking of Rook’s daughter.

“The body? Wal, I’ve carried it to the shanty, an’ put it out o’ sight. I didn’t want the hul country to be on fire till I’d fust seed ye. As yet, thar ain’t nobody the wiser.”

“And – ”

“An’ what?”

“Your daughter.”

“Oh! my darter don’t count. She air a ’bedient gurl, and ain’t gwine to blabbin’ while I put the stopper on her tongue. Don’t ye be skeeart ’beout thet.”

“Jerry Rook!” says Brandon, recovering confidence from the old hunter’s hints, “it’s no use being basket-faced over this business. We’ve got into a scrape, and and we know it. You know it, too. We had no intention to commit a crime; it was all a lark; but since it’s turned out ugly, we must make the best we can of it. You’re the only one who can make it disagreeable for us, and you won’t. I know you won’t. We’re willing to behave handsomely if you act otherwise. You can say this young fellow has gone away – down to Orleans, or anywhere else. I’ve heard you once say he was not to be with you much longer. That will explain to your neighbours why he is missing. To be plain, then, what is the price of such an explanation?”

“Durn me, Alf Brandon, ef you oughtn’t to be a lawyer, or something o’ thet sort. You hit it so adzactly. Wal; let’s see! I risk someat by keepin’ your secret – a good someat. I’ll stand a chance o’ bein’ tuk up for aidin’ an’ abettin’. Wal; let’s see! Thar war six o’ ye. My girl tolt me so, an’ I kin see it by the tracks o’ your critters. Whar’s the other four?”

“Not far off.”

“Wal; ye’d better bring ’em all up hyar. I s’pose they’re all’s deep in the mud as you in the mire. Besides, it air too important a peint to be settled by depity. I’d like all o’ yur lot to be on the groun’ an’ jedge for theerselves.”

“Agreed; they shall come. Bring them up, Bill.”

Bill does as directed, and the six young hunters are once more assembled in the glade; but with very different feelings from those stirring them when there before.

Bill has told them all, even to the proposal made by Rook; and they sit upon their horses downcast, ready to consent to his terms.

“Six o’ ye,” says the hunter, apparently calculating the price of the silence to be imposed on him; “all o’ ye sons o’ rich men, and all able to pay me a hundred dollars a-year for the term o’ my nateral life. Six hundred dollars. ’Tain’t much to talk abeout; jess keep my old carcase from starvin’. Huntin’s gone to the dogs ’bout hyar, an’ you fellars hev hed somethin’ to do in sendin’ it thar. So on that account o’ itself ye oughter be only too happy in purvidin’ for one whose business ye’ve speiled. It air only by way o’ a penshun. Hundred dollars apiece, and that reg’larly paid pre-annum. Ye all know what ’tis for. Do ye consent?”

“I do.”

“And I.”

And so signify the six.

“Wal, then, ye may go hum; ye’ll hear no more ’beout this bizness from me, ’ceptin’ any o’ ye shed be sech a dod-rotted fool as ter fall behind wi’ yur payments. Ef ye do, by the Eturnal – ”

“You needn’t, Jerry Rook,” interposes Brandon, to avoid hearing the threat; “you may depend upon us. I shall myself be responsible for all.”

“Enuf sed. Abeout this bar skin hanging on the tree. I ’spose ye don’t want to take that wi’ ye? I may take’ it, may I, by way o’ earnest to the bargain?”

No one opposes the request. The old hunter is made welcome to the spoils of the chase, both those on the spot and in the forest further off.

They who obtained them are but too glad to surrender every souvenir that may remind them of that ill-spent day.

Slow, and with bitter thoughts, they ride off, each to return to his own home, leaving Jerry Rook alone to chuckle over the accursed compact.

And this does he to his satisfaction.

“Now!” cries he, sweeping the bear’s skin from the branch, and striding off along the trace; “now to make things squar wi’ Dick Tarleton. Ef I ken do thet, I’ll sot this day down in the kullinder as bein’ the luckiest o’ my life.”

The sound of human voices has ceased in the glade. There is heard only the “whish” of wings as the buzzards return to their interrupted repast.

Story 1-Chapter X.
Vows of Vengeance

The sun is down, and there is deep darkness over the firmament; deeper under the shadows of the forest. But for the gleam of the lightning bugs, the forms of two men standing under the trees could scarce be distinguished.

By such fickle light it is impossible to read their features, but by their voices may they be recognised, engaged as they are in an earnest conversation.

They are Jerry Rook and Dick Tarleton.

The scene is on the bank of the sluggish stream or bayou, that runs past the dwelling of the hunter, and not twenty yards from the shanty itself. Out of this they have just stepped apparently for the purpose of carrying on their conversation beyond earshot of any one.

The faint light burning within the cabin, that part of it that serves as sitting-room and kitchen, is from the fire. But there is no one there; no living thing save the hound slumbering upon the hearth.

A still duller light from a dip candle shows through the slits of a shut door, communicating with an inner apartment. One gazing in might see the silhouette of a young girl seated by the side of a low bedstead, on which lies stretched the form of a youth apparently asleep. At all events, he stirs not, and the girl regards him in silence. There is just enough light to show that her looks are full of anxiety or sadness, but not sufficient to reveal which of the two, or whether both.

The two men outside have stopped by the stem of a large cottonwood, and are but continuing a dialogue commenced by the kitchen fire, that had been kindled but for the cooking of the evening meal, now eaten. It is still warm autumn weather, and the bears have not begun to hybernate.

“I tell ye, Dick,” says the old hunter, whose turn it is to speak, “for you to talk o’ revenge an’ that sort o’ thing air the darndest kind o’ nonsense. Take it afore the coort ideed! What good ’ud thet do ye? They’d be the coort, an’ the jedges; that is, thar fathers wud, an’ ye’d stan’ as much chance o’ gettin’ jestice out o’ ’em as ye wud o’ lightin’ yur pipe at one o’ them thar fire-bugs. They’ve got the money an’ the inflooence, an’ thar’s no law in these parts, ’ithout one or the t’other.”

“I know it – I know it,” says Tarleton, with bitter emphasis.

“I reckin ye’ve reezun to know it, Dick, now you haven’t the money to spare for sech purposes, an’, therefore, on thet score ’ud stan’ no chance. Besides thar’s the old charge agin ye, and ye dasent appear to parsecute. It’s the same men ye see, or the sons o’ the same – ”

“Curse them! The very same. Buck, Brandon, Randall – every one of them. Oh, God! There is destiny in it! ’Twas their fathers who ruined me, blighted my whole life, and now the sons to have done this. Strange – fearfully strange!”

“Wal, it air kewrious, I admit, an’ do look as ef the devvil hed a hand in’t. But he’s playin’ agen ye, Dick, yet, an’ he’d beat ye sure, ef ye try to fout agin him. Take the device I’ve gin ye, an’ git out o’ his and thar way as fur’s ye kin. Kaliforny’s a good way off. Go thar as ye intended. Git rich if ye kin, an’ ye think ye hev a chance. Do that, and then kum back hyar ef ye like. When yur pockets are well filled wi’ them thar shinin’ pebbles, ye kin command the law as ye like, and hev as much o’ it as ye’ve a mind to.”

“I shall have it for my own wrongs, or for his.”

“Wal, I reck’n you hev reezun both ways. They used you durn’d ill. Thar’s no doubt o’ that. Still, Dick, ye must acknowledge that appearances war dreadfully agin’ ye.”

“Against me – perdition! From the way you say that, Jerry Rook, I might fancy that you too believed it. If I thought you did – ”

“But I didn’t, an’ don’t, ne’er a bit o’ it, Dick. I know you war innercent o’ thet.

“Jerry Rook, I have sworn to you, and swear it again, that I am as innocent of that girl’s murder as if I had never seen her. I acknowledge that she used to meet me in the woods, and on the spot where she was found with a bullet through her heart, and my own pistol lying empty beside her. The pistol was stolen from my house by him who did the deed. It was one of the two men; which, I could never tell. It was either Buck or Brandon, the fathers of those fellows who have been figuring to-day. Like father, like son! Both were mad after the girl, and jealous of me. They knew I had outshined them, and that was no doubt their reason for destroying her. One or other did it, and if I’d known which, I’d have sent him after her long ago. I didn’t wish to kill the wrong man, and to say the truth, the girl was nothing to me. But after what’s happened to-day, I’ll have satisfaction on them and their sons too – ay, every one who has had a hand in this day’s work!”

“Wal, wal; but let it stan’ over till ye kum back from Kaliforny. I tell, ye, Dick, ye kin do nuthin’ now, ’ceptin’ to git yur neck into a runnin’ rope. The old lot are as bitter agin you now as they war that day when they had ye stannin’ under a branch, wi’ the noose half tightened round your thrapple; and ef ye hadn’t got out o’ thar clutches, why, then thar’d a been an end o’t. Ef you war to show here agin, it wud be jest the same thing, an’ no chance o’ yur escapin’ a second time. Therefar, go to Kaliforny. Gather as many o’ them donicks, an’ as much o’ the dust as ye kin lay yur claws on. Kum back, an’ maybe then I mout do someat ter ’sist ye to the satisfacshin ye speak o’.”

Tarleton stands silent, seeming to reflect. Strange that in all he has said, there is no tone of sorrow – only anger. The grief he should feel for his lost son – where is it?

Has it passed away so soon? Or is it only kept under by the keener agony of revenge?

With some impatience, his counsellor continues: —

“I’ve gin you good reezuns for goin’, an’ if you don’t take my device, Dick, you’ll do a durned foolish thing. Cut for Kaliforny, an’ get gold – gold fust, an’ let the revenge kum arter.”

“No,” answers Tarleton, with an emphasis telling of fixed determination. “The reverse, Jerry Rook, the reverse. For me, the revenge first, and then California! I’m determined to have satisfaction; and, if the law won’t give it – ”

“It won’t, Dick, it won’t.”

“Then, this will.”

There is just light enough from the fire-flies to show Jerry Rook the white ivory handle of a large knife, of the sort quaintly called Arkansas tooth-pick, held up for a moment in Tarleton’s hand.

But there is not enough to show Tarleton the dark cloud of disappointment passing over the face of the old hunter, as he perceives by that exhibition that his counsel had been spoken to no purpose.

“And now,” said the guest, straightening himself up as if about to make his departure, “I’ve business that takes me to Helena. I expect to meet that fellow I’ve been telling you of who gave me the gold. He’s to come there by an up-river boat, and should be there now. As you know, I’ve to do my travelling between two days. You may expect me back before sunrise. I hope you won’t be disturbed by my early coming?”

“Come an’ go when you like, Dick. Thar ain’t much saramony ’beout my shanty. All hours air the same to me.”

Tarleton buttons up his coat, in the breast of which is concealed the before-mentioned tooth-pick, and, without saying another word, strikes off for the road leading towards the river and the town of Helena. It is but little better than a bridle trace; and he is soon lost to sight under the shadows of its overhanging trees.

Jerry Rook keeps his place, standing close to the trunk of the cottonwood. When his guest has gone beyond reach of hearing, an exclamation escapes through his half-shut teeth, expressive of bitter chagrin.