This strange soliloquy does not occupy much time. It is spoken _sotto-voce_, while the speaker is still engaged in an effort to resuscitate life; nor is he yet certain that Pierre Robideau is dead, while raising his body from the ground and bearing it out of the glade. Staggering under the load, for the youth is of no light weight, he re-enters the trace conducting to his own domicile. The old bear-hound slinks after with a large piece of flesh between his teeth, torn from the carcase of the butchered bear. The vultures, no longer scared by man's presence, living or dead, drop down upon the earth, and strut boldly up to their banquet. STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT. THE OATH OF SECRECY. While the black buzzards are quarrelling over the carcase, not far off there is another carcase stretched upon the sward, also of a bear. But the grouping around it is different; six hunters on horseback and double the number of dogs. They are the boy hunters late bivouacking in the glade, and the bear is the same that had strayed unwittingly into their camp. The animal has just succumbed under the trenchant teeth of their dogs, and a bullet or two from their rifles. Nor have the hounds come off unscathed. Two or three of them, the young and rash, lie dead beside the quarry they assisted in dragging down. The hunters have just ridden up and halted over the black, bleeding mass. The chase, short and hurried, is at an end, and now for the first time since leaving the glade do they seem to have stayed for reflection. That which strikes them is, or should be, fearful. "My God!" cries young Randall, "the Indian! We've left him hanging." "We have, by the Lord!" seconds Spence, all six turning pale, and exchanging glances of consternation. "If he have let go his hold--" "If! He must have let go; and long before this. It's full twenty minutes since we left the glade. It isn't possible for him to have hung on so long--not possible." "And if he's let go?" "If he has done that, why, then, he's dead." "But are you sure the noose would close upon his neck? You, Bill Buck, and Alf Brandon, it was you two that arranged it." "Bah!" rejoins Buck; "you seed that same as we. It's bound to tighten when he drops. Of course we didn't mean that; and who'd a thought o' a bar runnin' straight into us in that way? Darn it, if the nigger has dropped, he's dead by this time, and there's an end of it. There's no help for it now." "What's to be done, boys?" asks Grubbs. "There'll be an ugly account to settle, I reckon." There is no answer to this question or remark. In the faces of all there is an expression of strange significance. It is less repentance for the act than fear for the consequences. Some of the younger and less reckless of the party show some slight signs of sorrow, but among all fear is the predominant feeling. "What's to be done, boys?" again asks Grubbs. "We must do something. It won't do to leave things as they are."