The cause of this warlike muster is understood by all. Some hours before, a report has spread throughout the plantations that Charles Clancy is missing from his home, under circumstances to justify suspicion of foul play having befallen him. His mother has sent messengers to and fro; hence the gathering around her house.
In the South-Western States, on occasions of this kind, it does not do for any one to show indifference, whatever his station in life. The wealthiest, as well as the poorest, is expected to take part in the administration of backwoods’ justice – at times not strictly en règle with the laws of the land.
For this reason Mrs Clancy’s neighbours, far and near, summoned or not summoned, come to her cottage. Among them Ephraim Darke, and his son Richard.
Archibald Armstrong is not there, nor looked for. Most know of his having moved away that same morning. The track of his waggon wheels has been seen upon the road; and, if the boat he is to take passage by, start at the advertised hour, he should now be nigh fifty miles from the spot, and still further departing. No one is thinking of him, or his; since no one dreams of the deposed planter, or his family, having ought to do with the business that brings them together.
This is to search for Charles Clancy, still absent from his home. The mother’s story has been already told, and only the late comers have to hear it again.
In detail she narrates what occurred on the preceding night; how the hound came home wet, and wounded. Confirmatory of her speech, the animal is before their eyes, still in the condition spoken of. They can all see it has been shot – the tear of the bullet being visible on its back, having just cut through the skin. Coupled with its master’s absence, this circumstance strengthens the suspicion of something amiss.
Another, of less serious suggestion, is a piece of cord knotted around the dog’s neck – the loose end looking as though gnawed by teeth, and then broken off with a pluck; as if the animal had been tied up, and succeeded in setting itself free.
But why tied? And why has it been shot? These are questions that not anybody can answer.
Strange, too, in the hound having reached home at the hour it did. As Clancy went out about the middle of the day, he could not have gone to such a distance for his dog to have been nearly all night getting back.
Could he himself have fired the bullet, whose effect is before their eyes?
A question almost instantly answered in the negative; by old backwoodsmen among the mustered crowd – hunters who know how to interpret “sign” as surely as Champollion an Egyptian hieroglyph. These having examined the mark on the hound’s skin, pronounce the ball that made it to have come from a smooth-bore, and not a rifle. It is notorious, that Charles Clancy never carried a smooth-bore, but always a rifled gun. His own dog has not been shot by him.
After some time spent in discussing the probabilities and possibilities of the case, it is at length resolved to drop conjecturing, and commence search for the missing man. In the presence of his mother no one speaks of searching for his dead body; though there is a general apprehension, that this will be the thing found.
She, the mother, most interested of all, has a too true foreboding of it. When the searchers, starting off, in kindly sympathy tell her to be of good cheer, her heart more truly says, she will never see her son again.
On leaving the house, the horsemen separate into two distinct parties, and proceed in different directions.
With one and the larger, goes Clancy’s hound; an old hunter, named Woodley, taking the animal along. He has an idea it may prove serviceable, when thrown on its master’s track – supposing this can be discovered.
Just as conjectured, the hound does prove of service. Once inside the woods, without even setting nose to the ground, it starts off in a straight run – going so swiftly, the horsemen find it difficult to keep pace with it.
It sets them all into a gallop; this continued for quite a couple of miles through timber thick and thin, at length ending upon the edge of the swamp.
Only a few have followed the hound thus far, keeping close. The others, straggling behind, come up by twos and threes.
The hunter, Woodley, is among the foremost to be in at the death; for death all expect it to prove. They are sure of it, on seeing the stag-hound stop beside something, as it does so loudly baying.
Spurring on towards the spot, they expect to behold the dead body of Charles Clancy. They are disappointed.
There is no body there – dead or alive. Only a pile of Spanish moss, which appears recently dragged from the trees; then thrown into a heap, and afterwards scattered.
The hound has taken stand beside it; and there stays, giving tongue. As the horsemen dismount, and get their eyes closer to the ground, they see something red; which proves to be blood. It is dark crimson, almost black, and coagulated. Still is it blood.
From under the edge of the moss-heap protrudes the barrel of a gun. On kicking the loose cover aside, they see it is a rifle – not of the kind common among backwoodsmen. But they have no need to waste conjecture on the gun. Many present identify it as the yäger usually carried by Clancy.
More of the moss being removed, a hat is uncovered – also Clancy’s. Several know it as his – can swear to it.
A gun upon the ground, abandoned, discharged as they see; a hat alongside it; blood beside both – there must have been shooting on the spot – some one wounded, if not actually killed? And who but Charles Clancy? The gun is his, the hat too, and his must be the blood.
They have no doubt of its being his, no more of his being dead; the only question asked is “Where’s his body?”
While those first up are mutually exchanging this interrogatory, others, later arriving, also put it in turn. All equally unable to give a satisfactory answer – alike surprised by what they see, and puzzled to explain it.
There is one man present who could enlighten them in part, though not altogether – one who comes lagging up with the last. It is Richard Darke.
Strange he should be among the stragglers. At starting out he appeared the most zealous of all!
Then he was not thinking of the dog; had no idea how direct, and soon, the instinct of the animal would lead them to the spot where he had given Clancy his death shot.
The foremost of the searchers have dismounted and are standing grouped around it. He sees them, and would gladly go back, but dares not. Defection now would be damning evidence against him. After all, what has he to fear? They will find a dead body – Clancy’s – a corpse with a bullet-hole in the breast. They can’t tell who fired the fatal shot – how could they? There were no witnesses save the trunks of the cypresses, and the dumb brute of a dog – not so dumb but that it now makes the woods resound with its long-drawn continuous whining. If it could but shape this into articulate speech, then he might have to fear. As it is, he need not.
Fortified with these reflections, he approaches the spot, by himself made bloody. Trembling, nevertheless, and with cheeks pale. Not strange. He is about being brought face to face with the man he has murdered – with his corpse!
Nothing of the kind. There is no murdered man there, no corpse! Only a gun, a hat, and some blotches of crimson!
Does Darke rejoice at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ague chill!
Luckily for the assassin this tale-telling exhibition occurs under the shadow of the great cypress, whose gloomy obscurity guards against its being observed. But to counteract this little bit of good luck there chances to be present a detective that trusts less to sight, than scent. This is Clancy’s dog. As Darke presents himself in the circle of searchers collected around it, the animal perceiving, suddenly springs towards him with the shrill cry of an enraged cat, and the elastic leap of a tiger!
But for Simeon Woodley seizing the hound, and holding