on that road. From
its absence, however, in every other quarter, the distracted officer
was naturally led to infer that they whom he so anxiously sought
had taken that direction, and thither he determined to follow. But
a second thought induced him to turn the angle of the house, before
leaving, that he might not have to reproach himself later with
having left anything unexamined behind. To his great surprise he
found the door, which he had himself hermetically closed many weeks
before, wide open. His first purpose, after sweeping his eye rapidly
but keenly around the half-trodden cornfield in the rear, was to
enter. This, in order not to lose time, and the rude aperture being
sufficiently large, he did without dismounting.

As his horse sprang in, he thought he could distinguish a moccasined
foot just at the moment of its hurried disappearance into the loft
above, but everything was so still that he felt satisfied his
distempered imagination and excited feeling, running on one
all-absorbing subject, had deceived him. He looked around.
Two dark objects attracted his attention, in the farthest corner
from him, of the room, the shutters of which being closed, yielded
but an indistinct light to one coming suddenly from the open air.
He moved his horse, stooping low himself as he advanced to that
end of the rude apartment, and beheld to his surprise, two small
trunks of black leather, on one of which was painted in rather
large letters "Maria Heywood." The other had no name upon it, but
he could have pledged his existence that, not one week previously,
he had seen it in his own apartment, and that it was his. That,
however, might be a mistake, for it was difficult to distinguish
with certainty; but in regard to the proprietorship of the other
there could be no question, and the only reasonable manner in which
he could account for their being there at that moment, was, that
the trunks had been in use by Mr. Heywood at the period of his
murder, and that, having been overlooked by the Indians, they had
been locked up, on closing the farm-house altogether.

It must not be supposed that the young officer took as much time
to comprehend and draw inferences from what he saw, as we have
taken in the description. A few rapid glances only were thrown
around, when, satisfied that there was no more to aid him in his
search, he turned his horse's head to gain the broader pathway
which, it has already been said, bordered on the river.