y 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 which have become
confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her
way among the tangled mazes of the swamp, and sank 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
surmised that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire, on
the top of which her hat was found lying. In confirmation of this, it
was said a great black man, with an axe 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 bull-frog croaked dolefully from a neighboring 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 hovering about a cypress-tree. He
looked up and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in
the branches of the tree, with a great vulture perched hard by, as
if keeping watch upon it. He leaped with joy, for he recognized his
wife's apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables.

"Let us get hold of the property," said he, consolingly, to himself,
"and we will endeavor to do without the woman."

As he scrambled up the tree, the vulture spread its wide wings and
sailed off, screaming, into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized
the checked apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and
liver tied up in it!

Such, according to this most authentic old story, was all that was to
be found of Tom's wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the
black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but
though a female scold is generally considered a match for the devil,
yet in this instance s