“It’s all up!” muttered the dying man.  “I am wiped out at last, and must go under!”

[Illustration:  “It’s all up!” muttered the dying man.  “I am wiped out at last, and must go under!”]

The Lost Trail had been the means of Tim, the trapper, discovering what proved to him the trail of death!

CHAPTER IX.

THE DEAD SHOT.

  And now ’tis still I no sound to wake
     The primal forest’s awful shade;
  And breathless lies the covert brake,
     Where many an ambushed form is laid. 
  I see the red-man’s gleaming eye,
     Yet all so hushed, the gloom profound,
  That summer birds flit heedlessly,
     And mocking nature smiles around.—­LUNT.

Five years have passed.  It is the summer of 1825.  In that comparatively brief period, what vast changes have taken place!  How many have come upon and departed from the stage of life!  How many plans, intentions and resolutions have been formed and either failed or succeeded!  How many governments have toppled to the earth, and followed by “those that in their turn shall follow them.”  What a harvest it has been for Death!

The missionary’s cabin stands on the Clearing where it was first erected, and there is little change in its outward appearance, save that perhaps it has been more completely isolated from the wood.  The humble but rather massive structure is almost impervious to the touch of time.  It is silent and deserted within.  Around the door plays a little boy, the image of his mother, while some distance away, under the shadow of the huge tree, sits the missionary himself.  One leg is thrown over the other, an open book turned with its face downward upon his lap, while his hands are folded upon it, and he is looking off toward the wood in deep abstraction of thought.  Time has not been so gentle with Harvey Richter.  There are lines upon his face, and a sad, wearied expression that does not properly belong there.  It would have required full fifteen years, in the ordinary course of events, to have bowed him in this manner.

The young man—­for he is still such—­and his little boy are the only ones who now dwell within the cabin.  No tidings or rumors have reached him of the fate of his wife, who was so cruelly taken from him four years before.  The faithful Teddy is still searching for her.  The last two winters he has spent at home, but each summer he has occupied in wandering hither and thither through the great wilderness, in his vain searching for the lost trail.  Cast down and dejected, he has never yet entirely abandoned hope of finding traces of her.  He had followed out the suggestion of the trapper, and visited the Indians that dwelt further north, where he was informed that nothing whatever was known of the missing woman.  Since that time his search had been mostly of an aimless character, which, as we have already stated, could be productive of no definite results.