Chapter 13 - Page 2

his children while they proceeded in the
investigation, it was more with the appearance of complying with their
wishes, at a time when resistance might not be seemly, than with any
visible interest in the result. As the borderers, notwithstanding
their usual dulness, were well instructed in most things connected
with their habits of life, an enquiry, the success of which depended
so much on signs and evidences that bore so strong a resemblance to a
forest trail, was likely to be conducted with skill and acuteness.
Accordingly, they proceeded to the melancholy task with great
readiness and intelligence.

Abner and Enoch agreed in their accounts as to the position in which
they had found the body. It was seated nearly upright, the back
supported by a mass of matted brush, and one hand still grasping a
broken twig of the alders. It was most probably owing to the former
circumstance that the body had escaped the rapacity of the carrion
birds, which had been seen hovering above the thicket, and the latter
proved that life had not yet entirely abandoned the hapless victim
when he entered the brake. The opinion now became general, that the
youth had received his death- wound in the open prairie, and had
dragged his enfeebled form into the cover of the thicket for the
purpose of concealment. A trail through the bushes confirmed this
opinion. It also appeared, on examination, that a desperate struggle
had taken place on the very margin of the thicket. This was
sufficiently apparent by the trodden branches, the deep impressions on
the moist ground, and the lavish flow of blood.

"He has been shot in the open ground and come here for a cover," said
Abiram; "these marks would clearly prove it. The boy has been set upon
by the savages in a body, and has fou't like a hero as he was, until
they have mastered his strength, and then drawn him to the bushes."

To this probable opinion there was now but one dissenting voice, that
of the slow-minded Ishmael, who demanded that the corpse itself should
be examined in order to obtain a more accurate knowledge of its
injuries. On examination, it appeared that a rifle bullet had passed
directly through the body of the deceased, entering beneath one of his
brawny shoulders, and making its exit by the breast. It required some
knowledge in gun-shot wounds to decide this delicate point, but the
experience of the borderers was quite equal to the scrutiny; and a
smile of wild, and certainly of singular satisfaction, passed among
the sons of Ishmael, when Abner confidently announced that the enemies
of Asa had assailed him in the rear.

"It must be so," said the gloomy but attentive squatter. "He was of
too good a stock and too well