Before sunrise in the morning Hinch arrived with six men. I was waked by his loud blustering and swearing. He was raving, as I afterwards understood, about Henry, calling his story about the meeting with the remarkable personage all humbug, and asserting his belief that, if a murder had been committed, Henry was its author. Our host quieted him in some way, and when we came out to join them he greeted us with a snarling sort of civility. He was a thick-set, broad-shouldered, burly-looking wretch, with blood-shot eyes, and face bearing all the marks of riotous debauchery! Our search was for several hours entirely unsuccessful, until Henry by accident found the place where he had encountered the Bearded Ghost, as some one christened him. Here one of the keen-eyed hunters found the traces of a large mocassined foot. These were pursued for several miles and lost. But, on spreading our line and continuing the same general course for some distance farther, we at last found, indeed, the body of Stoner! It had been so much mutilated by the wolves and ravens that little examination was made of the bones. We gathered them together to carry them home to his family, and in doing this I noticed the fracture of a bullet through the back of the skull. It had been stripped bare of flesh, and both eyes plucked out by the birds, and was too shocking an object for close examination. But what puzzled all parties most was the discovery, a short distance off, of the trail of a shod

horse. Now, there was, perhaps, not a horse in Shelby county that wore shoes, and certainly not one in our party. Shoeing is never thought of, being unnecessary where there are no stones. This was as perfect a poser as even Henry's story, and threw yet a greater air of inexplicability around the affair! It was thought that this track might be easily traced to any distance; but, after worrying about it for several days, it was given up in despair, and the Regulators, fatigued and disheartened, scattered for their respective homes.

But one of their number never reached his. Being missed for two days, there was a general turnout to look for him, and, as had been the case with Stoner, his body was found torn to pieces by the wolves. The report was, that he, too, had been shot through the back of the head.

These murders, and the singular circumstances accompanying them, created great sensation. Hinch and his troops scoured the country in every direction, arresting and lynching suspicious persons, as they called them. One poor, inoffensive fellow they hung and cut down four or five times, to make him confess; but nothing was elicited; and they left him with barely a spark of life.

That evening, as they were returning to their head-quarters at the store, one of them, named Winter, missed a portion of his horse furniture, which had become accidentally detached. He said he had observed it in its place a mile back, that he

would return to get it, and rejoin them at the store by the time they should be ready to commence the spree they had determined on going into that night. He left them, and never returned. They soon got drunk, and did not particularly notice his absence until some time the next day, when his family, alarmed by the return of his horse with an empty saddle, sent to inquire after him. This sort of inquiries had come to be so significant of late that they were instantly sobered, and, mounting, rode back on their trail. Very soon a swarm of buzzards and wolves, near a line of thicket ahead, designated the whereabouts of the object of their search; and there they found his fleshless bones scattered on every side.

They were appalled! The reddestbloated cheek among them blanched! It was terrible! They seemed to be doomed! Three of their number dead and torn to pieces within ten days, and yet not the slightest clue to the relentless and invisible foe, but that ghostly story of Henry's, and the tracks which only served to tantalize them! It must be some dread supernatural visitation of their hideous crimes! They shivered, while the great drops started from their foreheads, and, without thinking of looking for any trail, or even gathering up the bones, they started back at full speed, spreading the alarm everywhere. The excitement now became universal and tremendous. Nearly the whole country turned out for the pur

pose of unravelling this alarming mystery; and the superstitious frenzy was in no small degree heightened by the report that this man had been shot in the same way as the others-in the back of the

CHAPTER III.

HESE incidents were all so unacountable, that I own I felt no little sympathy with the popular association of a supernatural agency in their perpetration. Henry laughed at all this, but insisted that it was a maniac; and, to account for the peculiar dexterity of his escapes and whole management, related many anecdotes of the proverbial cunning of madmen. The wildest, most absurd, and incredible stories were now afloat among the people concerning this deadly and subtle foe of the Regulators, for it was now universally believed and remarked that it was against them alone that his enmity was directed. The story of Henry was greatly