. At length she determined
to drive the bargain on her own account, and, if she succeeded, to keep
all the gain to herself.

Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old
Indian fort toward the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent.
When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke
something of a black man whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the
root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms;
she was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she
forbore to say.

The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily
laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight came, but she
did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night returned, but still she
did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her safety, especially as he found
she had carried off in her apron the silver teapot and spoons, and every
portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another morning came;
but no wife. In a word, she was never heard of more.

What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many pretending
to know. It is one of those facts that have become confounded by a variety
of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way among the tangled mazes
of the swamp and sunk into some pit or slough; others, more uncharitable,
hinted that she had eloped with the household booty, and made off to some
other province; while others assert that the tempter had decoyed her into
a dismal quagmire, on top of which her hat was found lying. In
confirmation of this it was said a great black man with an ax on his
shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying
a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph.

The most current and probable story, however, observes that Tom Walker
grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set
out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer's
afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen.
He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The
bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the
bullfrog croaked dolefully from a neighborly pool.

At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls
began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his attention was attracted by
the clamor of carrion crows that were hover