He returned early the next morning, in a state of still greater excitement and concern than before; having ridden all night, in his anxiety to reach the settlement by the time people were up, so that immediate measures might be put afoot to scour the country in search of the missing Elwoods, whose continued absence had now become doubly mysterious and alarming, by the discovery he had made, as he feared he should, that they had not gone to Bethel at all, nor been seen or heard of anywhere in that direction. The news of Gaut's return alone, his improbable story, and the discovery of its almost certain falsity, spread like wild-fire over the settlement; and the people, already prepared to believe the worst by their previous suspicions of Gaut's evil designs, rose up as one man, instinctively shuddering at the thought of the apprehended crime, and feeling irresistibly impelled to attempt something to bring about that fearful atonement which Heaven demands of every man who wilfully sheds the blood of his fellow-man. So deep and absorbing was this feeling, indeed, in the present instance, that men dropped their hoes in the field, left their axes sticking in the trees, and threw aside all other kinds of business, and, with excited and troubled looks, hurried off to the scene of action, to see, hear, and join in whatever movement the exigencies of the case might require to be made. And before night nearly the whole of the settlers, residing within a circuit of a dozen miles of the surrounding country, had assembled at the tavern in the rustic hamlet, which, as before mentioned, they made, on all extraordinary occasions, the place of their common rendezvous. Here, after conversing a while in scattered groups, exchanging in low, hurried tones, and with many an apprehensive glance around them, their various opinions and conjectures, they gradually gathered in one room in the tavern, formed themselves into something like an organized meeting, and began their deliberations. But, before they had settled on any definite course of action, their attention was suddenly turned from the channel their minds were all evidently taking, by a new and unexpected occurrence.