midnight
On rising the next morning , Gaut had proposed that Claud remain at camp that day , to build a better shanty , and hunt in the near vicinity ; while he and Mark Elwood should explore the stream , to a pond some miles above , where his previously discovered beaver-haunts , he said , were mostly to be found , and where , the snow and ice having wholly disappeared , they could now operate to good advantage . With this arrangement , however , the young man , whose secret suspicions had been aroused by one or two previous attempts made by Gaut to separate him from his father , plausibly refused to comply ; and the consequence was , that they had all made the proposed explorations together , returned to camp without discovering any indications of the promised beaver , and laid down for the night , with the understanding , reluctantly agreed to by the moody and morose Gaut , that they should proceed down the lake to their boats the next morning , and embark for an immediate return to their homes , where the Elwoods felt conscious they must , by this time , be anxiously expected . Such were the circumstances under which we have brought this singularly-assorted party of trappers to the notice of the reader , as they lay sleeping in their bough-constructed tents , -- Gaut and Mark Elwood under one cover , and Claud under another , which he had fixed up for himself on the opposite side of their fire , -- on the ominous night which was destined to prelude the most tragic and melancholy scene of our variously eventful story . It was the hour of nature 's deepest repose , and the bright midnight moon , stealing through the gently-swaying boughs of the dark pines that rose heavenward , like pinnacles , along the silent shores around , was throwing her broken beams fitfully down upon the faces of the unconscious sleepers , faintly revealing the impress which the thoughts and purposes of the last waking hours had left on the countenance of each . And these impresses were as variant as the characters of those on whose features they rested : that lingering on the sternly-compressed lips and dark , beetling brows of Gaut Gurley , ever sinister , was doubly so now ; that on the face of Mark Elwood , whose vacillations of thought and feeling , through life , had exempted his features from any stamp betokening fixed peculiarity of character , was one of fatuous security ; and that resting on the intellectual and guileless face of Claud Elwood was one of simple care and inquietude . But what is that light , shadowy form , hovering near the sylvan couch of Claud , like some unsubstantial being of the air ; now advancing , now shrinking away , and now again flitting forward to the head of the youthful sleeper , and there pausing and preventing the light from longer revealing his features ? Yes , what is it ?