“Hear, in my country,” thereupon began Moose-killer, in the abbreviated, broken, and sententious language peculiar to the Red Man,--“hear, in my country, beaver bring more this side the mountains; so come over, and been to Bethel-town to sell ’em. Come over mountains, down piece, the river you call Magalloway,--then strike off down to big lake, Megantic. Then follow shore long way; but stop sudden,--start back! See much blood on the leaves,--trail all along down to the water. Then go back, look again,--find where man fall, bleed much,--die,--lay there till dead quite. Man, because see where hands catch hold of moss, leaves,--feet kick in ground. All dead, because feet limber and no catch in brush dragging to shore,--find where canoe hitch to shore,--dead man put in, rowed away, sunk in lake, likely. Look all over ground again, much time,--then come on long way, and find that canoe, hid in bushes,--take it, go sell beaver,--then come here quick to tell story, see who missing.” We will not undertake to describe the intense excitement which this brief but pregnant story of the Indian produced on the company, who, though hoping to gather something from him that might be of use in the inquiry on hand, were yet little expecting a development so startling as this. They--especially those but little acquainted with the Indian character--could, at first, hardly believe that a story of such horrors, if true, could be told so quietly, and with so little apparent feeling, as the narrator had exhibited during his recital; and they immediately subjected him to a long and close cross-examination. Nothing, however, was elicited to weaken his story, but some things to confirm it. Among these was a faint stain of blood, which Moose-killer pointed out to the company, in the bow of the canoe, and which was evidently but lately made, while the size and height of the man, supposed to be murdered, which the Indian judged of by a similar curious process with that by which he reached his other conclusions, were seen to correspond with the dimensions of the elder Elwood; who was believed to be the man thus indicated, though it left the fate of Claud still shrouded in mystery. “Poor Mark Elwood!” exclaimed the hunter, with a sigh, as they closed their examination of the Indian. “He is dead; whatever may have become of his son, for whom there is still some hope, _he_, at least, is dead! murdered in cold blood! and who need doubt the identity of the accursed author of the deed?” “This is, certainly, something like tangible evidence,” responded Carvil, whose former studies enabled him to speak more understandingly, in the matter of legal evidence, than his companions. “And, though it is still only circumstantial, yet, when taken in connection with Gaut’s false story, and all other of the attending circumstances, it stands out most remarkably significant against the man; and, even without any additional proof, it would, I think, warrant us in arresting him.”