Page 51 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

In a sudden blaze of passion at being thus scorned, he drove his axe deep
into the tree’s heart. A puff of wind stirred the topmost boughs. A shiver ran

through every branch and twig. Fibre after fibre cracked and parted. The
trunk tremulously swayed from its steadfast base. The sighing branches

clung to the unstable air. A tall, lithe birch, that had long leaned to their
embrace, sprang from it as in a flutter of fear, and then, with a slowly
accelerating sweep, the ancient pillar, with all its long upheld burden of

boughs and perennial greenery, went through its fellows to the last sullen
boom of its downfall. Toombs breathlessly watched and listened for

something besides the shortening vibration of the branches, some sound
other than the swish of relieved entanglement, but no sound or motion
succeeded them.

"Nathan, Nathan," he called again and again.

He ran along the trunk looking among the branches. He felt under the
densest tangles, then cleared them away with quick but careful axe strokes,

dreading, in every moment of search, that the next would reveal the crushed
and mangled form of the boy. Not till the shadows of night thickened the

shadows of the woods did he quit his fruitless search. He knew the boy was
dead, and, if found, what then? Well, for the present a plausible lie would
serve him well enough.

"Your boy has run off, Mis’ Toombs. You needn’t worry. He’ll git starved

out ’fore long and sneak back. And he’ll work all the better when he does
come. Boys has got to have their tantrums an’ git over ’em." This device
served so well to quiet any graver apprehensions that Ruth entertained, he

the more insisted on it. "Like’s not he’s over to the Fort. They’ll make him
stan’ round, I tell ye."

He intended in the morning to renew his search, but when it came he dared
not go near that fallen tree, the dumb witness and concealer of his crime.

When, from afar, he saw the crows wheeling above the spot, or when at
night he heard from that direction the wolf’s long howl, he shook with fear,

lest they had discovered his secret and would in some way reveal it.