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. Two young men, who had that day been across the lake to the Great Rapids, for the purpose of fishing, returned to the village about sunset, with the news that they had discovered, at the foot of the most dangerous pass of the rapids, wedged in among the projecting flood-wood of the place, a partially-wrecked and stove canoe, which they both recognized as the one kept by the Elwoods at their landing last summer, and, of course, the one they took away with them in their succeeding fall expedition. This fact, all at once readily perceived, might throw an entirely new aspect over the whole of the mysterious affair; and they soon decided on dispatching the same young men, at daybreak the next morning, across the lake, to examine carefully both shores of the inlet up to, and some distance beyond, the place where they found the canoe, to see if they could find any thing else, or discover any indications going to show that anybody had been wrecked and drowned there; then to return, as quickly as possible, with the wrecked canoe in tow, and whatever else they might find, to the Elwood landing; where the company would assemble, by the middle of the forenoon, to receive them, hear their report, examine the canoe, and take action according to the circumstances.