turn the weak side to man or beast!
Remember, boys, that while the front of manhood is to your enemy, let him be who
or what he may, you ar' safe from cowardly surprise - Why Eester, woman! you ar'
getting beside yourself, with picking at the hair and the garments of the child!
Little good can you do him, now, old girl.«
    »See!« interrupted Enoch extricating from the fragments of cloth, the morsel
of lead which had prostrated the strength of one so powerful. »Here is the very
bullet!«
    Ishmael took it in his hand, and eyed it long and closely.
    »There's no mistake« - at length he muttered, through his compressed teeth.
»It is from the pouch of that accursed trapper. Like many of the hunters, he has
a mark in his mould in order to know the work his rifle performs, and here you
see it plainly - six little holes laid crossways.«
    »I'll swear to it!« cried Abiram, triumphantly; »he show'd me his private
mark, himself, and boasted of the number of deer he had laid upon the Prairies
with these very bullets! Now, Ishmael, will you believe me, when I tell you the
old knave is a spy of the red-skins.«
    The lead pass'd from the hand of one to that of another, and unfortunately
for the reputation of the old man, several among them remembered also to have
seen the aforesaid private bullet-mark, during the curious examination which all
had made of his accoutrements. In addition to this wound, however, were many
others of a less dangerous nature, all of which were deemed to confirm the
supposed guilt of the trapper.
    The traces of many different struggles were to be seen, between the spot,
where the first blood was spilt and the thicket to which it was now generally
believed Asa had retreated as a place of refuge. These were interpreted into so
many proofs of the weakness of the murderer, who would have sooner dispatched
his victim had not even the dying strength of the youth rendered him formidable
to the infirmities of one so old. The danger of drawing some others of the
hunters to the spot, by repeated firing, was deem'd a sufficient reason for not
again resorting to the rifle after it had performed the important duty of
disabling the victim. The weapon of the dead man, was not to be found, and had
doubtless, together with many other less valuable and lighter articles, that he
was