ut because, only
lately arrived, he has scarce yet entered into the spirit of their
proceedings.

His grief, on getting the news of Mrs Clancy's death, for a time holds
him in restraint. It is a fresh sorrow; since, not only had her son
been long his friend, but in like manner her husband and herself.

In loyal memory of this friendship, he has been making every effort to
bring the murderer to justice; and one just ended accounts for his late
arrival at the cottage. As on the day before, he and Heywood have
remained behind the other searchers; staying in the woods till all these
returned home. Yesterday they were detained by an affair of _bullets_--
to-day it is _boots_. The same that are missing, and about which
questions have just been asked, the last by Sime Woodley himself.

In answer to it he continues:--

"They not only kin be foun', but hev been. Hyar they air!"

Saying this, the hunter pulls a boot out of his pocket, and holds it up
before their eyes; Heywood simultaneously exposing another--its fellow!

"That's the fut wear ye're in sarch o', I reck'n," pursues Woodley. "'T
all eevents it's a pair o' boots belongin' to Dick Darke, an' war worn
by him the day afore yesterday. What's more, they left thar marks down
on the swamp mud, not a hunderd mile from the spot whar poor Charley
Clancy hez got his death shot; an' them tracks war made not a hundred
minnits from the time he got it. Now boys! what d'ye think o' the
thing?"

"Where did you get the boots?" ask several, speaking at the same time.

"No matter whar. Ye kin all see we've got 'em. Time enuf to tell o'
the whar an' the wharf or when it kums to a trial. Tho lookin' in yur
faces, fellurs, I shed say it's kim to somethin' o' that sort now."

"_It has_!" responds one of the jury, in a tone of emphatic affirmation.

"In that case," pursues the hunter, "me an' Ned Heywood are ready to
_gie_ sech evidince as we've got. Both o' us has spent good part o'
this arternoon collectin' it; an' now it's at the sarvice o' the court
o' Judge Lynch, or any other."

"Well then, Woodley!" says a planter of respectability, who by tacit
consent is representing the stern terrible judge spoken of. "Suppose
the Court to be in session. Tell us all you know."

With alacrity Woodley responds to the appeal; giving his experience,
along with it his suspicions and conjectures; not simply as a witness,
but more like a counsel in the case. It needs not to say