like these had he in the
least suspected that the Colonel had been thrust into the other world
with the clutch of violence upon his throat.

The family of Colonel Pyncheon, at the epoch of his death, seemed
destined to as fortunate a permanence as can anywise consist with the
inherent instability of human affairs. It might fairly be anticipated
that the progress of time would rather increase and ripen their
prosperity, than wear away and destroy it. For, not only had his son
and heir come into immediate enjoyment of a rich estate, but there was
a claim through an Indian deed, confirmed by a subsequent grant of the
General Court, to a vast and as yet unexplored and unmeasured tract of
Eastern lands. These possessions--for as such they might almost
certainly be reckoned--comprised the greater part of what is now known
as Waldo County, in the state of Maine, and were more extensive than
many a dukedom, or even a reigning prince's territory, on European
soil. When the pathless forest that still covered this wild
principality should give place--as it inevitably must, though perhaps
not till ages hence--to the golden fertility of human culture, it would
be the source of incalculable wealth to the Pyncheon blood. Had the
Colonel survived only a few weeks longer, it is probable that his great
political influence, and powerful connections at home and abroad, would
have consummated all that was necessary to render the claim available.
But, in spite of good Mr. Higginson's congratulatory eloquence, this
appeared to be the one thing which Colonel Pyncheon, provident and
sagacious as he was, had allowed to go at loose ends. So far as the
prospective territory was concerned, he unquestionably died too soon.
His son lacked not merely the father's eminent position, but the talent
and force of character to achieve it: he could, therefore, effect
nothing by dint of political interest; and the bare justice or legality
of the claim was not so apparent, after the Colonel's decease, as it
had been pronounced in his lifetime. Some connecting link had slipped
out of the evidence, and could not anywhere be found.

Efforts, it is true, were made by the Pyncheons, not only then, but at
various periods for nearly a hundred years afterwards, to obtain what
they stubbornly persisted in deeming their right. But, in course of
time, the territory was partly regranted to more favored individuals,
and partly cleared and occupied by actual settle