Replying that I did not wish to buy, as our team started, I said to my companion, with the "invincible assurance of a sudden presentiment," "that man can commit murder. How does that one-armed man dare to live by him?" Those two were "old Ringe" and Callahan. The following Sabbath saw no small stir in our usually peaceful community. From various quarters men poured forth, afoot and in teams, many heavily armed, for old Ringe was the patriarch of a numerous and motley company, in which French, English, African, and Indian blood intermingled, producing, with their besotted habits, a degraded and desperate band. It was a balmy May morning. The air was fragrant with the scent of fresh grasses and spring blossoms, while the bluebird and the robin made joyous music. Could it be that amid such sights and sounds we were on our way to a scene of blood? On that holy, heaven-blessed morning, too? "There's the cabin," said a voice at my side, arousing me from the revery into which I had fallen. The same dreamy quiet rested on it, as on the entire landscape. Not a person was to be seen as we drew near, and the birds sang as blithely from the covert of the woods, as out among the flowering hedges and shrubs of the green spreading prairie, away from "habitations of cruelty." On the side of the dwelling at which we stopped there was nothing to denote violence, but passing around it, a sight met the eye that sent a shudder through every spectator. In the hay that littered the ground was a deep sanguinary pool. Beneath the gory mass, the blood was still limpid; the quantity leaving no doubt on our minds as to the fatal character of the deed. A hoe leaned against the building, a pipe, with some partially burnt matches, near it; the dead man's cap and vest were not far off, while scattered around were bits of clotted paper that had been written over. These last I carefully gathered, placing them in a rifled pocket-book I had picked up. From the blood spot to the fence the grass was bent, and the soil disturbed as if the body had been dragged that way. On the rails were crimson stains, while over them, the trail could be traced towards the creek, which ran between us and a tangled grove. Old Ringe's window, forty rods north, overlooked our group, but not an inmate came to ascertain the cause of the gathering. It was proposed that I should take some of our number with me, and make inquiries there, while the rest hunted after the remains of Callahan. Two good men volunteering, we started on our mission. At the window, as we drew near, was the old man's son-in-law, Shuber, making ready to shave; at his elbow a mulatto woman watching us. Two barking curs disputed the passage as we approached the open door, at which Ringe's wife, also a mulatto, stout and ill-favored, her heavy features badly pitted by the smallpox, came to the door, and called out with a hoarse, savage voice, "Be still, I tell yer!"