The snow was unusually deep in the woods that winter, and toward spring there came a sudden, prolonged, and heavy thaw. The ice broke rapidly and every loosened brook became a torrent. Past the door of the camp, which was set in a valley, the Gornish River went boiling and roaring like a mill-race, all-forgetful of its wonted serene placidity.

From the camp to Gillsey's wretched cabin was only about ten miles across the mountain, but by the stream, which made a great circuit to get around a spur of the hills, it was hardly less than three times as far.

To Gillsey, in his log hut on a lofty knoll by the stream, the winter had gone by rather happily. The degradation of his punishment hardly touched him or his barbarous brood; and his wages had brought him food enough to keep the wolf from the door. He had nothing to do but to sit in his cabin and watch the approach of spring, while his lean boys snared an occasional rabbit.

At last, on a soft moonlight night, when the woods were full of the sounds of melting and settling snow, a far-off, ominous roaring smote his ear and turned his gaze down to the valley. Down the stream, on the still night, came the deadly, rushing sound, momently increasing in volume. The tall girl, she who had carried off the pork, heard the noise, and came to her father's side.

"Hackett's dam's bust, shore!" she exclaimed in a moment.

Gillsey turned upon her one of his deprecating, toothless smiles. "'T aint a-goin' ter tech us here," said he; "but I'm powerful glad ter be outer the Gornish Camp ter night. Them chaps be a-goin' ter ketch it, blame the'r skins!"

The girl—she was a mere overgrown child of fourteen or fifteen—looked thoughtful a moment, and then darted toward the woods.

"Whar yer goin', sis?" called Gillsey, in a startled voice.

"Warn 'em!" said the girl, laconically, not stopping her pace.

"Stop! stop! Come back!" shouted her father, starting in pursuit. But the girl never paused.

"Blame the'r skins! Blame the'r skins!" murmured Gillsey to himself. Then, seeing that he was not gaining on the child, he seemed to gulp something down in his throat, and finally he shouted:—

"I'll go, sis, honest I'll go. Yer kaint do it yerself. Come back home!"

The girl stopped, turned round, and walked back, saying to her father, "They've kep' us the winter. Yer must git thar in time, dad!"

Gillsey went by the child, at a long trot, without answering, and disappeared in the woods; and at the same moment the flood went through the valley, filling it half-way up to the spot where the cabin stood.

That lanky youngster's word was law to the father, and she had set his thoughts in a new channel. He felt the camp must be saved, if he died for it. The girl said so. He only remembered now how easily the men had let him off, when they might have half-killed him; and their jests and jeers and tormentings he forgot. His loose-hung frame gave him a long stride, and his endurance was marvellous. Through the gray and silver glades, over stumps and windfalls, through thickets and black valleys and treacherous swamps, he went leaping at almost full speed.

Before long the tremendous effort began to tell. At first he would not yield; but presently he realized that he was in danger of giving out, so he slackened speed a little, in order to save his powers. But as he came out upon the valley and neared the camp, he caught once more a whisper of the flood, and sprang forward desperately. Could he get there in time? The child had said he must. He would.

His mouth was dry as a board, and he gasped painfully for breath, as he stumbled against the camp-door; and the roar of the flood was in his ears. Unable to speak at first, he battered furiously on the door with an axe, and then smashed in the window.

As the men came jumping wrathfully from their bunks, he found voice to yell:—

"The water! Dam broke! Run! Run!"

But the noise of the onrushing flood was now in their startled ears, and they needed no words to tell them their awful peril. Not staying an instant, every man ran for the hillside, barefooted in the snow. Ere they reached a safe height, Gillsey stumbled and fell, utterly exhausted, and for a moment no one noticed his absence.

Then the boss of the camp looked back and saw him lying motionless in his tracks. Already the camp had gone down under the torrent, and the flood was about to lick up the prostrate figure; but the boss turned back with tremendous bounds, swung Gillsey over his shoulder like a sack of oats, and staggered up the slope, as the water swelled, with a sobbing moan, from his ankles to his knees.

Seeing the situation of the boss, several more of the hands, who had climbed to a level of safety, rushed to the rescue. They seized him and his burden, while others formed a chain, laying hold of hands. With a shout the whole gang surged up the hill,—and the river saw its prey dragged out of its very teeth.

After a rest of a few moments, Gillsey quite recovered, and began most abject apologies for not getting to camp sooner, so as to give the boys time to save something.

The demonstrative hand-shakings and praises and gratitude of the men whom he had snatched from a frightful death seemed to confuse him. He took it at first for chaff, and said, humbly, that "Bein' as sis wanted him to git thar in time, he'd did his best." But at length it dawned upon him that his comrades regarded him as a man, as a hero, who had done a really splendid and noble thing. He began to feel their gratitude and their respect.

Then it seemed as if a transformation was worked upon the poor cringing fellow, and he began to believe in himself. A new, firmer, manlier light woke in his eye, and he held himself erect. He presently began to move about among the woodsmen as their equal, and their enduring gratitude gave his new self-confidence time to ripen. From that day Simon Gillsey stood on a higher plane. In that one act of heroism he had found his slumbering manhood.



In the Accident Ward.

The grass was gray, of a strange and dreadful pallor, but long and soft. Unbroken, and bending all one way, as if to look at something, it covered the wide, low, rounded hill that rose before me. Over the hill the sky hung close, gray and thick, with the color of a parched interminable twilight. Dew or a drop of rain could not be thought of as coming from such a sky.

Along the base of the low hill ran a red road of baked clay, blood red, and beaten with nameless and innumerable feet. I stood in the middle of this road and prepared to ascend the hill obliquely by a narrow footpath, red as blood, which divided the soft gray bending of the grasses. Behind me the road made a sharp turn, descending out of thick clouds into a little blood-red hollow, where it was crossed by an open gate. In this gate, through which I had somehow come, stood two gray leopards and a small ape. The beasts stood on tip-toe and eyed me with a dreadful curiosity; and from somewhere in the little hollow I heard a word whispered which I could not understand. But the beasts heard it, and drew away through the open gate, and disappeared.

Between the footpath (which all the time gleamed redly through the over-gathering grasses) and the rounded brink of the gulf there seemed to be a fence of some sort, so fine that I could not quite distinguish it, but which I knew to be there.

I turned my eyes to the low summit of the hill. There I saw a figure, all gray, cleaving the grasses in flight as swift as an arrow. Behind, in pursuit, came another figure, of the color of the grasses, tall and terrible beyond thought. This being, as it seemed to me, was the Second Death, and my knees trembled with horror and a sort of loathing. Then I saw that he who fled made directly for me; and as they sped I could hear a strange hissing and rustling of their garments cleaving the grasses. When the fleeing ghost reached me, and fell at my feet, and clasped my knees in awful fear, I felt myself grow strong, and all dread left my soul. I reached forth my right hand and grasped the pursuing horror by the throat.

I heard the being laugh, and the iron grip of my own strong and implacable fingers seemed to close with a keen agony upon my own throat, and a curtain seemed to fall over my eyes. Then I gasped for breath, and a warm pungent smell clung in my nostrils, and a white light swam into my eyes, and I heard a voice murmuring far off, but in an accent strangely familiar and commonplace, "He's coming round all right now."

I opened my eyes with a dim wonder, and found myself surrounded by the interested faces of the doctors and the clean white walls of the hospital ward. I heard a sound of some one breathing hoarsely near by, and a white-capped nurse with kind eyes stepped up to my pillow, and I perceived that the heavy breather was myself. I was lying with my head and neck swathed in bandages, and a sharp pain at my throat. Then flashed across my memory the crash and sickening upheaval of the collision. I wondered feebly how it had fared with my fellow-passengers, and again I saw that instant's vision of wild and startled faces as the crowded car rose and pitched downward, I knew not whither. With a sense of inexpressible weariness, my brain at once allowed the terrible scene to slip from its grasp, and I heard a doctor, who was standing at the bedside watch in hand, say, quietly, "He'll sleep now for a couple of hours."



The Romance of an Ox-Team.

The oxen, lean and rough-haired, one of them carroty red, the other brindle and white, were slouching inertly along the narrow backwoods road. From habit they sagged heavily on the yoke, and groaned huge windy sighs, although the vehicle they were hauling held no load. This structure, the mere skeleton of a cart, consisted of two pairs of clumsy, broad-tired wheels, united by a long tongue of ash, whose tip was tied with rope to the middle of the forward axle. The road looked innocent of even the least of the country-road-master's well-meaning attempts at repair,—a circumstance, indeed, which should perhaps be set to its credit. It was made up of four deep, parallel ruts, the two outermost eroded by years of journeying cart-wheels, the inner ones worn by the companioning hoofs of many a yoke of oxen. Down the centre ran a high and grassy ridge, intolerable to the country parson and the country doctor, compelled to traverse this highway in their one-horse wagons. From ruts and ridges alike protruded the imperishable granite boulder, which wheels and feet might polish but never efface. On either side of the roadway was traced an erratic furrow, professing to do duty for a drain, and at intervals emptying a playful current across the track to wander down the ruts.

Along beside the slouching team slouched a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered youth, the white down just beginning to stiffen into bristles on his long upper lip. His pale eyes and pale hair looked yet paler by contrast with his thin, red, wind-roughened face. In his hand he carried a long-handled ox-whip, with a short goad in the butt of it.

"Gee, Buck!" he drawled, prodding the near ox lightly in the ribs. And the team lurched to the right to avoid a markedly obtrusive boulder. "Haw, Bright!" he ejaculated a minute later, flicking with his whip the off shoulder of the farther ox. And with sprawling legs and swaying of hind-quarters the team swerved obediently to the left, shunning a mire-hole that would have taken in the wheel to the hub. Presently, coming to a swampy spot that stretched all the way across the road, the youth seated himself sidewise on the narrow tongue connecting the fore and hind axles, and drove his team dry-shod.

It was a slow and creaking progress; but there seemed to be no hurry, and the youth dreamed gloomily on his jolting perch. His eyes took no note of the dark-mossed, scrubby hillocks, the rough clearings blackened with fire, the confused and ragged woods, as they crept past in sombre procession. But suddenly, as the cart rounded a turn in the road, there came into view the figure of a girl travelling in the same direction. The young man slipped from his perch and prodded up the oxen to a brisk walk.

As the noise of the team approached her, the girl looked around. She was good to see, with her straight, vigorous young figure in its blue-gray homespun gown. Her hair, in color not far from that of the red ox, was rich and abundant, and lay in a coil so gracious that not even the tawdry millinery of her cheap "store" hat could make her head look quite commonplace. Her face was freckled, but wholesome and comely. A shade of displeasure passed over it as she saw who was behind her, and she hastened her steps perceptibly. But presently she remembered that she had a good five miles to go ere she would reach her destination; and she realized that she could not hope to escape by flight. With a pout of vexation she resigned herself to the inevitable, and dropped back into her former pace. Immediately the ox-team overtook her.

As the oxen slowed up she stepped to the right to let them pass, and then walked on, thus placing the cart between herself and her undesired companion. The youth looked disconcerted by these tactics, and for a few moments could find nothing to say. Then, dropping his long white lashes sheepishly, he murmured, "Good-day, Liz."

"Well, Jim-Ed!" replied the girl, coolly.

"Won't ye set on an' let me give ye a lift home?" he asked, with entreaty in his voice.

"No," she said, with finality: "I'd ruther walk."

Not knowing how to answer this rebuff, he tried to cover his embarrassment by exclaiming authoritatively, "Haw, Bright!" whereupon the team slewed to the left and crowded him into the ditch.

Soon he began again.

"Ye might set on, Liz," he pleaded.

"Yes, I might," said she, with what she considered rather withering smartness; "but I ain't a-goin' to."

"Ye'll be tired afore ye git home," he persisted, encouraged by finding that she would talk back at him.

"James-Ed A'ki'son," she declared, with emphasis, "if ye think I'm a-goin' to be beholden to you fer a lift home, ye're mistaken, that's all."

After this there was silence for some time, broken only by the rattling and bumping of the cart, and once by the whir of a woodcock that volleyed across the road. Young Atkinson chewed the cud of gloomy bewilderment. At length he roused himself to another effort.

"Liz," said he, plaintively, "y' ain't been like ye used to, sence ye come back from the States."

"Ain't I?" she remarked, indifferently.

"No, Liz, ye ain't," he repeated, with a sort of pathetic emphasis, as if eager to persuade himself that she had condescended to rebut his accusation. "Y' ain't been like ye used to at all. Appears like as if ye thought us folks in the Settlement wasn't good enough fer ye now."

At this the girl tossed her head crossly.

"It appears like as if ye wanted to be back in the States ag'in," he continued, in a voice of anxious interrogation.

"My lands," exclaimed the girl, "but ye're green!"

To the young man this seemed such an irrelevant remark that he was silent for some time, striving to fathom its significance. As his head sank lower and lower, and he seemed to lose himself completely in joyless revery, the girl shot occasional glances at him out of the corners of her eyes. She had spent the preceding winter in a factory in a crude but stirring little New England town, and had come back to Nova Scotia ill content with the monotony of life in the backwoods seclusion of Wyer's Settlement. Before she went away she had been, to use the vernacular of the Settlement, "keepin' company with Jim-Ed A'ki'son;" and now, to her, the young man seemed to unite and concentrate in his person all that she had been wont to persuade herself she had outgrown. To be sure, she not seldom caught herself dropping back comfortably into the old conditions. But these symptoms stirred in her heart an uneasy resentment, akin to that which she felt whenever—as would happen at times—she could not help recognizing that Jim-Ed and his affairs were not without a passing interest in her eyes.

Now she began to grow particularly angry at him because, as she thought, "he hadn't nothing to say fer himself." Sadly to his disadvantage, she compared his simplicity and honest diffidence with the bold self-assertion and easy familiarity of the young fellows with whom she had come in contact during the winter. Their impertinences had offended her grievously at the time, but, woman-like, she permitted herself to forget that now, in order to accentuate the deficiencies of the man whom she was unwilling to think well of.

"My lands!" she reiterated to herself, with accumulated scorn, "but ain't he green? He—why, he wouldn't know a 'lectric car from a waterin'-cart. An' soft, too, takin' all my sass 'thout givin' me no lip back, no more 'n if I was his mother!"

But the young man presently broke in upon these unflattering reflections. With a sigh he said slowly, as if half to himself,—

"Lands, but I used to set a powerful store by ye, Liz!"

He paused; and at that "used to" the girl opened her eyes with angry apprehension. But he went on,—

"An' I set still more store by ye now, Liz, someways. Seems like I jest couldn't live without ye. I always did feel as how ye was too good, a sight too good, fer me, an' you so smart; an' now I feel it more 'n ever, bein' 's ye've seen so much of the world like. But, Liz, I don't allow as it's right an' proper fer even you to look down the way ye do on the place ye was born in an' the folks ye was brung up with."

"My!" thought the girl to herself, "he's got some spunk, after all, to git off such a speech as that, an' to rake me over the coals, too!"

But aloud she retorted, "Who's a-lookin' down on anybody, Jim-Ed A'ki'son? An', anyways, you ain't the whole of Wyer's Settlement, be ye?"

The justice of this retort seemed to strike the young man with great force.

"That's so," he acknowledged, gloomily. "'Course I ain't. An' I s'pose I hadn't oughter said what I did."

Then he relapsed into silence. For half a mile he slouched on without a syllable, save an occasional word of command addressed to the team. Coming to another boggy bit of road, he seated himself dejectedly on the cart, and apparently would not presume to again press unwelcome assistance upon his fellow-way-farer. Quite uncertain whether to interpret this action as excess of humility or as a severe rebuke, the girl picked her way as best she could, flushed with a sense of injury.

When the mud was passed, the young man absent-mindedly, kept his seat. Beginning to boil with indignation, the girl speedily lost her confident superiority, and felt humiliated. She did not know exactly what to do. She could not continue to walk humbly beside the cart. The situation was profoundly altered by the mere fact that the young man was riding. She tried to drop behind; but the team had an infinite capacity for loitering. At last, with head high in the air, she darted ahead of the team, and walked as fast as she could. Although she heard no orders given by their driver, she knew at once that the oxen had quickened their pace, and that she was not leaving them behind.

Presently she found herself overtaken; whereupon, with swelling heart and face averted, she dropped again to the rear. She was drawing perilously near the verge of that feminine cataclysm, tears, when Fate stepped in to save her from such a mortification.

Fate goes about in many merry disguises. At this juncture she presented herself under the aspect of two half-tipsy commercial travellers driving a single horse in a light open trap. They were driving in from the Settlement, in haste to reach the hotel at Bolton Corners before nightfall. The youth hawed his team vigorously till the nigh wheels were on the other side of the ditch, leaving a liberal share of the road for them to pass in.

But the drummers were not satisfied with this. After a glance at the bashful face and dejected attitude of the young man on the ox-cart, they decided that they wanted the whole road. When their horse's head almost touched the horns of the off ox, they stopped.

"Get out of the way there!" cried the man who held the reins, insolently.

At any other time Jim-Ed would have resented the town man's tone and words; just now he was thinking about the way Liz had changed.

"I've gi'n ye the best half o' the road, mister," he said, deprecatingly, "'n' I can't do no better fer ye than that."

"Yes, you can, too," shouted the driver of the trap; "you can give us the whole road. It won't hurt your old cart to go out in the stumps, but we ain't going to drive in the ditch, not by a jugful. Get over, I tell you, and be quick about it."

To this the youth made no immediate reply; but he began to forget about the girl, and to feel himself growing hot. As for the girl, she had stepped to the front, resolved to "show off" and to make very manifest to the city men her scorn for her companion. Her cheeks and eyes were flaming, and the drummers were not slow to respond to the challenge which she flashed at them from under her drooped lids.

"Ah, there, my beauty!" said the driver, his attention for a moment diverted from the question of right of way. His companion, a smallish man in striped trousers and fawn-colored overcoat, sprang lightly out of the trap, with the double purpose of clearing the road and amusing himself with Liz. The saucy smile with which she met him turned into a frown, however, as he began brutally kicking the knees of the oxen to make them stand over.

The patient brutes crowded into the ditch.

"Whoa, there! Gee, Buck! gee, Bright!" ordered the youth, and the team lurched back into the road. At the same time he stepped over the cart-beam and came forward on the off side of the team.

"Ye'd better quit that, mister!" he exclaimed, with a threatening note in his voice.

"Give the lout a slap in the mouth, and make him get out of the way," cried the man in the trap.

But the man in the fawn-colored overcoat was busy. Liz was much to his taste.

"Jump in and take a ride with us, my pretty," said he.

But Liz shrank away, regretting her provocative glances now that she saw the kind of men she had to do with.

"Come, come," coaxed the man, "don't be shy, my blooming daisy. We'll drive you right in to the Corners and set up a good time for you." And, grasping her hand, he slipped an arm about her waist and tried to kiss her lips. As she tore herself fiercely away, she heard the man in the trap laugh loud approval. She struck at her insulter with clenched hand; but she did not touch him, for just then something happened to him. The long arm of the youth went out like a cannon-ball, and the drummer sprawled in the ditch. He nimbly picked himself up and darted upon his assailant, while the man in the trap shouted to him encouragingly,—

"Give it to him pretty, Mike."

But the young countryman caught him by the neck with long, vise-like fingers, inexorable, and, holding him thus helpless at arm's length, struck him again heavily in the ribs, and hurled him over the ditch into a blueberry thicket, where he remained in dazed discretion.

Though of a lamb-like gentleness on ordinary occasions, the young countryman was renowned throughout the Settlement for the astonishing strength that lurked in his lean frame. At this moment he was well aroused, and Liz found herself watching him with a consuming admiration. He no longer slouched, and his pale eyes, like polished steel, shot a menacing gleam. He stepped forward and took the horse by the bridle.

"Now," said he to the driver, "I've gi'n ye half the road, an' if ye can't drive by in that I'm a-going to lead ye by, 'thout no more nonsense."

"Let go that bridle!" yelled the driver, standing up and lashing at him with the whip.

One stroke caught the young man down the side of the face, and stung. It was a rash stroke.

"Hold the horse's head, Liz," he cried; and, leaping forward, he reached into the trap for his adversary. Heeding not at all the butt end of the whip which was brought down furiously upon his head, he wrenched the driver ignominiously from his seat, spun him around, shook him as if his had been a rag baby, and hurled him violently against a rotten stump on the other side of the ditch. The stump gave way, and the drummer splashed into a bog hole.

Nothing cows a man more quickly than a shaking combined with a ducking. Without a word the drummer hauled himself out of the slop and walked sullenly forward. His companion joined him; and Liz, leading the horse and trap carefully past the cart, delivered them up to their owners with a sarcastic smile on her lips. Then she resumed her place beside the cart, the young man flicked the oxen gently, and the team once more got slowly under way.

As the discomfited drummers climbed into their trap, the girl, in the ardor of her suddenly adopted hero-worship, could not refrain from turning around again to triumph over them. When the men were fairly seated, and the reins gathered up for prompt departure, the smaller man turned suddenly and threw a large stone, with vindictive energy and deadly aim.

"Look out!" shrieked the girl; and the young countryman turned aside just in time to escape the full force of the missile. It grazed the side of his head, however, with such violence as to bring him to his knees, and the blood spread throbbing out of the long cut like a scarlet veil. The drummers whipped their horse to a gallop, and disappeared.

The girl first stopped the team, with a true country-side instinct; and she was at the young man's side, sobbing with anxious fear, just as he staggered blindly to his feet. Seating him on the cart, she proceeded to stanch the bleeding with the edge of her gown. Observing this, he protested, and declared that the cut was nothing. But she would not be gainsaid, and he yielded, apparently well content under her hands. Then, tearing a strip from her colored cotton petticoat, she gently bound up the wound, not artistically, perhaps, but in every way to his satisfaction.

"If ye hadn't gi'n me warnin', Liz, that there stun'd about fixed me," he remarked.

The girl smiled happily, but said nothing.

After a long pause he spoke again.

"Seems to me ye're like what ye used to, Liz," said he, "only nicer, a sight nicer; an' y' used to be powerful nice. I allow there couldn't be another girl so nice as you, Liz. An' what ever's made ye quit lookin' down on me, so sudden like?"

"Jim-Ed," she replied, in a caressing tone, "ef y' ain't got no paper collar on, ner no glas' di'mon' pin, I allow ye're a man. An' maybe—maybe ye're the kind of man I like, Jim-Ed."

To even such genuine modesty as Jim-Ed's this was comprehensible. Shyly and happily he reached out his hand for hers. They were both seated very comfortably on the cart-beam, so he did not consider it necessary to move. Side by side, and hand in hand, they journeyed homeward in a glorified silence. The oxen appeared to guide themselves very fairly. The sunset flushed strangely the roadside hillocks. The nighthawks swooped in the pale zenith with the twang of smitten chords. And from a thick maple on the edge of a clearing a hermit-thrush fluted slowly over and over his cloistral ecstasy.



A Tragedy of the Tides.

This is the story of the fate that befell Lieutenant Henry Crewe and Margaret Neville, his betrothed, who disappeared from the infant city of Halifax on the afternoon of September 18th, 1749. The facts were gathered by one Nicholas Pinson from the mouths of Indians more or less concerned, from members of the Neville family, and from much sagacious conjecture; and woven, with an infinite deal of irrelevant detail, into a narrative which has been rigorously condensed in the present rendering. The industrious Pinson's manuscript, with all its attenuated old French characters, its obscure abbreviations, and its well-bred contempt for orthographical accuracy, might perhaps be found even yet in the Provincial archives at Halifax. At least, if any one be curious to examine this story in the original, just as M. Pinson wrote it, he may search the archives of Halifax with a reasonable surety that the manuscript is as likely to be found there as anywhere else.

There was a faint, opaline haze in the afternoon air, and in the still waters of the harbor the low hills, with their foliage lightly touched in bronze and amethyst and amber, were faithfully reproduced. Into a hollow between two knolls wooded with beech trees, ran a shallow cove, its clear waters edged with sand of a tender, greenish gray. Close to the water's edge stood the lovers, and across the silence they could hear, pulsating dimly, the hammers of them that were building the city.

"Listen," said the man, as he drew the girl closely to him and kissed her on the forehead; "those are the strokes that are making a home for us."

The girl lifted her lips for a kiss that never reached them. The man was seized from behind, a dark hand covered his mouth; and Lieutenant Henry Crewe, his sword unstirred in its scabbard, found himself pinioned hand and foot, ere he had time to realize that other arms were about him than those of the woman he loved. With her it fared in like fashion, save that before they covered her mouth she found time for one long piercing cry. It was heard by those who were working on the city palisades; but no man could tell the direction whence it came. Presently a search party set out for the thick woods lying a little north of west from the city; but in the mean time the Indians had carried their captives northeastward to the lakes, and were making all speed on the Fundy coast by way of the Shubenacadie trail.

Henry Crewe was a tall man, and well sinewed, and for a brief space he strove so fiercely with his bonds that his fair skin flushed well-nigh purple, and his lips, under the yellow mustache, curled apart terribly, like those of a beast at bay. Unable to endure the anguish of his effort, Margaret averted her eyes, for she knew the hopelessness of it. Like all the Nevilles of Nova Scotia to this day, the girl was somewhat spare of form and feature, with dark hair, a clear, dark skin, and eyes of deep color that might be either gray or green. Her terrible cry had been far less the utterance of a blind terror than a deliberate signal to the garrison at the fort, and so complete was her self-control that when Crewe presently met her gaze his brain grew clearer, he forgot the derision in the Indians' painted faces, ceased his vain struggles, and bent all his thought to the task of finding means of deliverance.

The captives were thrown into canoes and paddled swiftly to the head of the long basin which runs inland for miles from the head of the harbor. At the beginning of the portage their feet were unbound, and their mouths set free from the suffocating gags.

"Oh, Margaret! Margaret! To think I should have brought you to this!" exclaimed Crewe in a harsh voice, the moment his lips were free.

The girl had confidence in her lover's power to find some way of protecting her, in case no help should come from the city. Her sole thought now was to show herself brave, and in no way to embarrass his judgment. Before she could answer, however, the leader of the band struck Crewe across the mouth with the flat of his hatchet, as a hint that he should keep silence. Had Crewe been alone, bound as he was, he would have felled his assailant with a blow of the foot; but for Margaret's sake he forced himself to endure the indignity tamely, though his blue eyes flamed with so dangerous a light that the Indian raised his hatchet again in menace. The girl's heart bled under the stroke and at sight of the wounded mouth, but she prudently abstained from speech. Only she spoke one word in a low voice that said all things to her lover's ear, the one word "Beloved!"

To the chief now spoke one of the band in the Micmac tongue:—

"Why not let the paleface talk to his young squaw? It will be the more bitter for them at the last!"

"No," said the chief, grinning; "it is as death to the palefaces to keep silence. But they shall have time to talk at the last."

Throughout the long journey, which was continued till midnight under the strong light of a moon just at the full, the lovers held no converse save in the mute language of eye and gesture, and that only during the rough marches from one lake to another. The greater part of the journey was by canoe. At night they were lashed to trees some way apart, and separated by the camp-fire. Crewe dared not address a word to Margaret lest he should anger his captors into doing him some injury that might lessen his powers of thought or action, and the girl, seeing that no immediate gain could be had from speech, dreaded to be smitten on the mouth in a way that might disfigure her in her lover's eyes. Only at times, when a wind would blow the smoke and flame aside, she looked across the camp-fire into the young man's face, and in the look and in the smile of the steady lips he read not only an unswerving courage, but also a confidence in his own resourceful protection, which pierced his heart with anguish. All night he pondered schemes of rescue or escape, until his brain reeled and his soul grew sick before the unsolvable problem. He could move neither hand nor foot, and just before dawn he sank to sleep in his bonds. Then for the waking girl the loneliness became unspeakable, and her lips grew ashen in the first light of the dawn.

Late on the following day the band drew up their canoes on the banks of the Shubenacadie, where its waters began to redden with the tide, and struck through the woods by a dark trail. The next day the captives were tortured by the sight of a white steeple in the distance, belonging to an Acadian settlement. Crewe judged this to be the village of Beaubassin. The surmise was confirmed when, a few hours later, after a wide detour to avoid the settlement, the flag of France was seen waving over the foliage that clothed a long line of heights. By this time the band was traversing a vast expanse of salt marshes, and after crossing a little tidal stream near its head, they turned sharply southwestward toward the sea. Presently the raw red earthworks of Beausejour rose into view some seven or eight miles distant across the marshes. There, among his bitter enemies, Crewe knew he might find sure succor, if only the gallant Frenchmen could be made aware of what was passing so near them. He saw Margaret's eyes fixed with terrible appeal upon the hostile works, wherein for her and for her lover lay safety; and agonized to feel his utter helplessness, he raised a long and ringing shout which, as it seemed to him, must reach the very souls of those behind the ramparts. Margaret's heart leaped with hope, which flickered out as she saw the Indians laugh grimly at the foolish effort. To be within sight of help, and yet so infinitely helpless! For the first time the girl yielded to complete despair, and her head sank upon her breast. In the Journal of the Sieur Carre, at this time a lieutenant at Beausejour, occurs this entry, under date of September 20, 1749:—

"Noted this morning a small party of natives moving down the shores of the river Tintamarre. Too far off to distinguish whether it was a war party or not, but this their order of march seemed to suggest."

After skirting for perhaps an hour a red and all but empty channel, which Crewe recognized by hearsay as the bed of the Tantramar (or Tintamarre, "water of hubbub"), the savages suddenly led their captives down the steep, gleaming abyss of mud to the edge of the shallow current, which now, at low tide, clattered shrilly seaward over clods of blue clay and small stones rolled down from the uplands.

Margaret awoke from her despair enough to shudder disdainfully, as her feet sank more than ankle deep in the clinging ooze, and to wonder why the Indians should halt in such a place. She met her lover's glance, and saw that he was singularly disturbed.

The place was like a hideous gaping pit. A double winding of the channel closed it in above and below. Some forty or fifty feet over their heads, against a pure sky of loveliest blue, waved a shaggy fringe of salt grasses, yellowing in the autumn air. This harsh and meagre herbage encircled the rim of the chasm, and seemed to make the outer world of men infinitely remote. The sun, an hour or two past noon, glared down whitely into the gulf, and glistened, in a myriad of steely reflections, from the polished but irregular steeps of slime. There was something so strange and monstrous in the scene that Margaret's dull misery was quickened to a nameless horror. Suddenly a voice, which she hardly recognized as that of her lover, said slowly and steadily:—

"Margaret, this is the end of our journey; we have come to the end."

Looking up she met Crewe's eyes fastened upon her with a gaze which seemed to sustain her and fill her nerves with strength. With the end of his uncertainty his will became clear, and his resolution perfect as tempered steel. An Indian had brought two stakes and thrown them on the mud at the leader's feet. Margaret looked at the rough-trimmed saplings, at the tide-mark far up the dreadful slope, then again into her lover's face. She understood; but she gave no sign, save that her skin blanched to a more deathly pallor, and she exclaimed in a voice of poignant regret: "Have we kept silence all these long hours only for this? And I had so much to say to you!"

"There will be time," he said gently, and his voice was a caress. "The flood tide has not yet begun, and it will take some hours. And it was well, dear, that we could not speak; for so you had hope till the last to support you, while I had none, having heard the Indians say we were to die, though they said not in my hearing when or how. Had you known you might not have had this high courage of yours, that now gives me strength to endure the utmost. Dear, your heroic fortitude has been everything to me."

A faint flush of pride rose into the girl's face, and she stretched out her pinioned arms to him, and cried: "You shall not be deceived in me. I will be worthy of you, and will not shame our race before these beasts."

By this time the stakes were driven into the strong clay. They were placed some way up the slope, and one a little space above the other. To the lower stake they fastened Crewe. As the girl was being bound to the other, her arms were freed for a moment that the savages might the more readily remove her upper garments, and by a swift movement she loosened her hair so that it fell about her to her knees,—the splendid Neville hair, still famous in the Province. There was no bounty then on English scalps, and the horror of the scalping knife was not threatened them. When the savages had made their task complete, they laughed in their victims' faces and retreated up the steep and over the grassy rim.

"Are they gone?" asked the girl.

"No, they are lying in wait to watch us," answered Crewe; and as he ceased speaking a muffled sound was heard, and with a sudden hubbub that filled the chasm with clamor, the first of the flood-tide came foaming round the curve, and the descending current halted as if in fear of the meeting. The next moment the bed of the stream was hidden by a boiling reddish torrent, racing up the channel; and the tide was creeping by inches toward the captives' feet. For an hour or more the bright gulf of death was so loud with this turmoil and with the echoes from the red walls of mud, and the yellow eddies of foam whirled and swept so dizzily past their eyes, that the captives' senses were dulled in a measure, as if by some crude anodyne or vast mesmeric influence. When, however, the channel was about one-third full and the water now beginning to cover Crewe's feet, the flood became more quiet and equable, spreading smoothly over freer spaces. Presently there was a frightful silence, intensified by the steady sunlight, and broken only by the stealthy, soft rush and snake-like hiss of the tide. Then, as Margaret's brain grew clear in the stillness, a low cry, which tortured Crewe's features, forced itself from her lips. She realized for the first time why the stake to which she was bound had been set higher than her lover's. She would watch the cruel colored water creep over Crewe's mouth, then cover his eyes, and hide at last the brave head she had longed to kiss, ere it climbed to ease her own lips of life. She said: "Love, I will lay my face down in the water as soon as it is near enough, and I shall not be far behind you."

A wide-winged gray gull, following the tide up the channel, gave a startled cry as he came upon the silent figures, and rose higher, with sudden flapping, as he turned his flight away across the marshes.

* * * * *

In the Journal of the Sieur Carre, in Beausejour, there is a second entry under the date of September 20, 1749. It was added on a succeeding day. Translated fully it runs thus:—

"In the afternoon took a guard and marched across the Tintamarre to see what mischief the redskins had been at, having observed them to leave two of their number in the channel, and to linger long on the brink, as if watching something in the stream. It was within an hour of high tide when we reached the spot, the savages disappearing on our approach. Saw on the further shore a piteous sight, whereat our hearts burned to follow the redskins and chastise their devilish malice. A woman was bound to a stake, her face fallen forward in the water, and a wonderful luxuriance of dark hair spread about her and floating on the current. Swam across the river, with those of my men following who could, and, plunging beneath the tide, cut her bonds. But found the life had fled, at which we wondered; for had she held her head erect the water would not yet have been within a little of her chin. But presently we found, beneath the water, the body of a young man, bound likewise to a stake; and it seemed to us we thereupon understood why the poor lady had been in such haste to die. The lovers, for so we deemed them, were plainly English, and we took them with us back to the Beausejour, purposing to give them Christian burial,—and more than ever cursing the hard necessity which forces us to make alliance with the natives."



At the Rough-and-Tumble Landing.

The soft smell of thawing snow was in the air, proclaiming April to the senses of the lumbermen as unmistakably as could any calendar.

The ice had gone out of the Big Aspohegan with a rush. There was an air of expectation about the camp. Everything was ready for a start down-stream. The hands who had all winter been chopping and hauling in the deep woods were about to begin the more toilsome and perilous task of "driving" the logs down the swollen river to the great booms and unresting mills about its mouth. One thing only remained to be done ere the drive could get under way. The huge "brow" of logs over-hanging the stream had yet to be released. To whom would fall the task of accomplishing its release, was a question still undecided.

The perils of "stream-driving" on a bad river have been dwelt upon, I suppose, by every writer who has occupied his pen at all with the life of the lumber-camps. But to the daring backwoodsman there seldom falls a task more hazardous than that of cutting loose a brow of logs when the logs have been piled in the form of what is called a "rough-and-tumble landing." Such a landing is constructed by driving long timbers into the mud at the water's edge, below a steep piece of bank. Along the inner side of these are laid horizontally a certain number of logs, to form a water front; and into the space behind are tumbled helter-skelter from the tops of the bank the logs of the winter's chopping. It is a very simple and expeditious way of storing the logs. But when the ice has run out, and it is time to start the lumber down-stream, then comes trouble. The piles sustaining the whole vast weight of the brow have to be cut away, and the problem that confronts the chopper is how to escape the terrific rush of the falling logs.

Hughey McElvey, the boss of the Aspohegan camp, swinging an axe (rather as a badge of office than because he thought he might want to chop anything), sauntered down to the water's edge and took a final official glance at the brow of logs. Its foundations had been laid while McElvey was down with a touch of fever, and he was ill satisfied with them. For perhaps the fiftieth time, he shook his head and grumbled, "It's goin' to be a resky job gittin' them logs clear." Then he rejoined the little cluster of men on top of the bank.

As he did so, a tall girl with splendid red hair came out of the camp and stepped up to his side. This was Laurette, the boss's only daughter, who had that morning driven over from the settlements in the back country, to bring him some comforts of mended woollens and to bid "the drive" God-speed. From McElvey the girl inherited her vivid hair and her superb proportions; and from her mother, who had been one Laurette Beaulieu, of Grande Anse, she got her mirthful black eyes and her smooth, dusky complexion, which formed so striking a contrast to her radiant tresses. A little conscious of all the eyes that centred upon her with varying degrees of admiration, love, desire, or self-abasing devotion, she felt the soft color deepen in her cheeks as she playfully took possession of McElvey's axe.

"You're not goin' to do it, father, I reckon!" she exclaimed.

"No, sis," answered the boss, smiling down at her, "leastways, not unless the hands is all scared."

"Well, who is goin' to?" she inquired, letting her glance sweep rapidly over the stalwart forms that surrounded her. A shrewd observer might have noted that her eyes shyly avoided one figure, that stood a little apart from the rest,—the figure of a strongly-built man of medium size, who looked small among his large-moulded fellows. As for Jim Reddin, who was watching the girl's every movement, his heart tightened with a bitter pang as her eyes thus seemed to pass him over. Having, for all his forty years, a plentiful lack of knowledge of the feminine heart and its methods, he imagined himself ignored. And yet had he not Laurette's promise that none other than he should have the privilege of driving her home to the settlements that afternoon?

"That's what we're just a-goin' to decide," said McElvey, in answer to Laurette's question. "But first," he continued, with a sly chuckle, "hadn't you better pick out the feller that's goin' to drive you home, sis? We're goin' to be powerful well occupied, all hands, when we git a start on them logs, I tell you!"

At this suggestion a huge young woodsman who was standing behind some of the others, out of Laurette's range of vision, started eagerly forward. Bill Goodine was acknowledged to be the best-looking man on the Big Aspohegan,—an opinion in which he himself most heartily concurred. He was also noted as a wrestler and fighter. He was an ardent admirer of Laurette; but his passion had not taught him any humility, and he felt confident that in order to gain the coveted honor of driving the girl home he had nothing to do but apply for it. He felt that it would hardly be the "square thing" to put Laurette to the embarrassment of inviting him right there before all the hands. Before he could catch her eye, however, Laurette had spoken what surely the devil of coquetry must have whispered in her ear. Undoubtedly, she had promised Jim Reddin that he should drive her home. But "let him show that he appreciates the favor," she thought to herself; and aloud, with a toss of her head, she exclaimed, "I'll take the one that cuts out the logs,—if he wants to come!"

The effect of this speech was instantaneous. Fully half the hands stepped forward, exclaiming, "I'll do it!—I'll do it, boss!—I'm your man, Mr. McElvey!" But Bill Goodine sprang to the front with a vigor that brushed aside all in his path. Thrusting himself in front of the laughing McElvey, he shouted, "I spoke first! I claim the job!" And, snatching up an axe, he started down the bank.

"Hold on!" shouted McElvey; but Goodine paid no attention. "Come back, I tell you!" roared the boss. "The job's yours, so hold on!" Upon this Bill came swaggering back, and gazed about him triumphantly.

"I guess I'm your teamster, eh, Laurette?" he murmured. But, to his astonishment, Laurette did not seem to hear him. She was casting quick glances of anger and disappointment in the direction of Jim Reddin, who leaned on a sled-stake and appeared to take no interest in the proceedings. Goodine flushed with jealous wrath, and was about to fling some gibe at Reddin, when McElvey remarked,—

"That's all very well, sis; and has kinder simplified matters a lot. But I'm thinkin' you'd better have another one of the boys to fall back on. This 'ere's an onusual ticklish job; and the feller as does it'll be lucky if he comes off with a whole skin."

At these words so plain an expression of relief went over Laurette's face that Bill Goodine could not contain himself.

"Jim Reddin dasn't do it," he muttered to her, fiercely.

The girl drew herself up. "I never said he dast," she replied. "An' what's Jim Reddin to me, I'd like to know?" And then, being furious at Jim, at herself, and at Goodine, she was on the point of telling the latter that he shouldn't drive her home, anyway, when she reflected that this would excite comment, and restrained herself. But Reddin, who imagined that the whole thing was a scheme on Laurette's part for getting out of her promise to him, and who felt, consequently, as if the heavens were falling about his ears, had caught Goodine's mention of his name. He stepped up and asked sharply, "What's that about Jim Reddin?"

Laurette was gazing at him in a way that pierced his jealous pain and thrilled his heart strangely; and as he looked at her he began to forget Bill Goodine altogether. But Goodine was not to be forgotten.

"I said," he cried, in a loud voice, "that you, Jim Reddin, jest dasn't cut out them logs. You think yourself some punkins, you do; but ye're a coward!" And, swinging his great form round insolently, Goodine picked up his axe and sauntered down the bank.

Now, Laurette, as well as most of the hands, looked to see this insult promptly resented in the only way consistent with honor. Reddin, though tender-hearted and slow to anger, was regarded as being, with the possible exception of Goodine, the strongest man in that section of the country. He had proved his daring by many a bold feat in the rapids and the jams; and his prowess as a fighter had been displayed more than once when a backwoods bully required a thrashing. But now he gave the Aspohegan camp a genuine surprise. First, the blood left his face, his eyes grew small and piercing, and his hands clenched spasmodically as he took a couple of steps after Goodine's retreating figure. Then his face flushed scarlet, and he turned to Laurette with a look of absolutely piteous appeal.

"I can't fight him," he tried to explain, huskily. "You don't understand. I ain't afeard of him, nor of any man. But I vowed to his mother I'd be good to the lad, and—"

"Oh, I reckon I quite understand, Mr. Reddin," interrupted the girl, in a hard, clear voice; and, seeing the furious scorn in her face, Reddin silently turned away.

Laurette's scorn was sharpened by a sense of the bitterest disappointment. She had allowed herself to give her heart to a coward, whom she had fancied a hero. As she turned to her father, big tears forced themselves into her eyes. But the episode had passed quickly; and her distress was not observed, as all attention now turned to Goodine and his perilous undertaking. Only McElvey, who had suspected the girl's sentiments for some time, said in an undertone, "Jim Reddin ain't no coward, and don't you forget it, sis. But it is queer the way he'll just take anything at all from Bill Goodine. It's somethin' we don't none of us understand."

"I reckon he does well to be scared of him," said Laurette, with her head very high in the air.

By this time Goodine had formed his plans, and had got to work. At first he called in the assistance of two other axemen, to cut certain of the piles which had no great strain upon them. This done, the assistants returned to safe quarters; and then Bill warily reviewed the situation. "He knows what he's about," murmured McElvey, with approbation, as Bill attacked another pile, cut it two-thirds through, and left it so. Then he severed completely a huge timber far on the left front of the landing. There remained but two piles to withstand the main push of the logs. One of these was in the centre, the other a little to the right,—on which side the chopper had to make his escape when the logs began to go. This latter pile Goodine now cut half-way through. Feeling himself the hero of the hour, he handled his axe brilliantly, and soon forgot his indignation against Laurette. At length he attacked the centre pile, the key to the whole structure.

Everybody, at this point, held his breath. Loud sounded the measured axe-strokes over the rush of the swollen river. No one moved but Reddin, and no one but Laurette noticed his movement. His skilled eye had detected a danger which none of the rest perceived. He drew close to the brow, and moved a little way down the bank.

"What can he be up to?" wondered Laurette; and then she sniffed angrily because she had thought about him at all.

Goodine dealt a few cautious strokes upon the central pile, paused a moment or two to reconnoitre, and then renewed his attack. Reddin became very fidgety. He watched the logs, and shouted earnestly,—

"Better come out o' that right now and finish on this 'ere nigh pile."

Goodine looked up, eyed first his adviser, then very narrowly the logs, and answered, tersely, "Go to h—ll!"

"That's just like the both of 'em," muttered McElvey, as Goodine turned and resumed his chopping.

At this moment there came a sullen, tearing sound; and the top of the near pile, which had been half cut through, began to lean slowly, slowly. A yell of desperate warning arose. Goodine dropped his axe, turned like lightning, and made a tremendous leap for safety. He gained the edge of the landing-front, slipped on an oozy stone, and fell back with a cry of horror right beneath the toppling mass of logs.

As his cry re-echoed from every throat, Jim Reddin dropped beside him as swiftly and almost miraculously as a sparrow-hawk flashes upon its prey. With a terrific surge he swung Goodine backward and outward into the raging current, but away from the face of the impending avalanche. Then, as the logs all went with a gathering roar, he himself sprang outward in a superb leap, splashed mightily into the stream, disappeared, and came up some yards below. Side by side the two men struck out sturdily for shore, and in a couple of minutes their comrades' eager hands were dragging them up the bank.

"Didn't I tell you Jim Reddin wasn't no coward?" said McElvey, with glistening eyes, to Laurette; and Laurette, having no other way to relieve her excitement and give vent to her revulsion of feelings, sat down on a sled and cried most illogically.

As the two dripping men approached the camp, she looked up to see a reconciliation. Presently Goodine emerged from a little knot of his companions, approached Reddin, and held out his hand.

"I ask yer pardon," said he. "You're a man, an' no mistake. It is my life I owe to you; an' I'm proud to owe it to sech as you!"

But Reddin took no notice of the outstretched hand. The direct and primitive movements of the backwoodsman's mind may seem to the sophisticated intelligence peculiar; but they are easy to comprehend. Jim Reddin quite overlooked the opportunity now offered for a display of exalted sentiment. In a harsh, deliberate voice he said,—

"An' now, Bill Goodine, you've got to stand up to me, an' we'll see which is the better man, you or me. Ever sence you growed up to be a man you've used me just as mean as you knowed how; an' now we'll fight it out right here."

At this went up a chorus of disapproval: and Goodine said, "I'll be d—d if I'm a-goin to strike the man what's jest saved my life!"

"You needn't let that worry you, Bill," replied Reddin. "We're quits there. I reckon you forget as how your mother, God bless her, saved my life, some twenty year back, when you was jest a-toddlin'. An' I vowed to her I'd be good to you the very best I knowed how. An' I've kep' my vow. But now I reckon I'm quit of it; an' if you ain't a-goin' to give me satisfaction now my hands is free, then you ain't no man at all, an' I'll try an' find some way to make you fight!"

"Jim's right!—You've got to fight, Bill!—That's fair!" and many more exclamations of like character, showed the drift of popular sentiment so plainly that Goodine exclaimed, "Well, if you sez so, it's got to be! But I don't want to hurt you, Jim Reddin; an' lick you I kin, every day in the week, an' you know it!"

"You're a liar!" remarked Jim Reddin, in a business-like voice, as the hands formed a ring.

At this some of the hands laughed, and Goodine, glancing around, caught the ghost of a smile on Laurette's face. This was all that was needed. The blood boiled up to his temples, and with an oath under his breath he sprang upon his adversary.

Smoothly and instantaneously as a shadow Reddin eluded the attack. And now his face lost its set look of injury and assumed a smile of cheerful interest. Bill Goodine, in spite of his huge bulk, had the elasticity and dash of a panther; but his quickness was nothing to that of Reddin. Once or twice the latter parried, with seeming ease, his most destructive lunges, but more often he contented himself with moving aside like a flash of light. Presently Goodine cried out,—

"Why don't yer fight, like a man, stidder skippin' out o' the road like a flea?"

"'Cause I don't want to hurt you," laughed Reddin.

But that little boastful laugh delayed his movements, and Goodine was upon him. Two or three terrible short-arm blows were exchanged, and then the two men grappled.

"Let 'em be," ordered McElvey. "They'd better wrastle than fight."

For a second or two, nay, for perhaps a whole minute, it looked to the spectators as if Reddin must be crushed helpless in Bill's tremendous embrace. Then it began to dawn on them that Reddin had captured the more deadly hold. Then the dim rumors of Reddin's marvellous strength began to gather credence, as it was seen how his grip seemed to dominate that of his great opponent.

For several minutes the straining antagonists swayed about the ring. Then suddenly Reddin straightened himself, and Bill's hold slipped for an instant. Before he could recover it Reddin had stooped, secured a lower grip, and in a moment hurled his adversary clear over his shoulder. A roar of applause went up from the spectators; and Goodine, after trying to rise, lay still and groaned, "I'm licked, Jim. I've had enough."

The boss soon pronounced that Bill's shoulder was dislocated, and that he'd have to go back to the settlements to be doctored. This being the case, Laurette said to him benevolently, after her horse was harnessed to the pung, "I'm sorry I can't ask you to drive me home, though you did cut out the logs, Bill. But I reckon it'll be the next best thing fur you if I drive you home. An' Jim Reddin'll come along, maybe, to kind of look after the both of us."

To which proposition poor Bill grinned a rather ghastly assent.



An Experience of Jabez Batterpole.

One February afternoon a tremendous snow-storm was raging about the camp on the Upper Keswick. The air was so thick with driving flakes that one could scarcely see five feet ahead of him. It fell dark in the woods by the middle of the afternoon, and the chopping and the hauling came to an end. Lamps were soon lighted in camp, and the lumbermen, in their steaming homespuns, gathered about the roaring stove to sing, smoke, swap yarns and munch gingerbread. The wind screamed round the gables of the camp, rattled at the door and windows, and roared among the tree-tops like the breaking of great waves on an angry coast. From the stables close by came ever and anon the neighing of a nervous horse.

Andy Mitchell had been detailing with tireless minuteness the virtues of his magnificent team of stallions, Tom and Jerry, and had described (as was his wont on all possible occasions) the manner in which they had once saved his life when he was attacked by a tremendous Indian Devil. This Indian Devil (as the Northern Panther is called in Canada) had been literally pounded to pieces under the hoofs of the angry stallions. As Mitchell concluded, there came a voice from the other side of the stove, and a tall Woodstocker spoke up. This was a chopper very popular in the camp, and known by the name of Jabe. His real name, seldom used except on Sundays, was Jabez Ephraim Batterpole.

"I'll tell yez a leetle yarn, boys," said Jabe, "about a chap ez warn't egzackly an Injun Devil, but he was half Injun, an' I'm a-thinkin t' other half must 'a' been a devil. I run agin him las' June, three year gone, an' he come blame near a-doin' fur me. I haint sot eyes on him sence, fur which the same I ain't a-goin' to complain.

"I'd been up to the Falls, an' was a-takin' a raft down the river fur Gibson. Sandy Beale was along o' me, an' I dunno ez ever I enjoyed raftin' more 'n on the first o' thet trip. Doubtless yez all knows what purty raftin' it is in them parts. By gum, it kinder makes a chap lick his lips when he rickolecks it, a-slidin' along there in the sun, not too hot an' not too cold, a-smokin' very comfortable, with one's back braced agin a saft spruce log, an' smellin' the leetle catspaws what comes blowin' off the shores jest ez sweet an' saft ez a gal's currls a-brushin' of a feller's face."

"What gal's currls be you referrin' to Jabe?" interrupted Andy Mitchell.

"Suthin' finer 'n horse-hair, anyways!" was the prompt retort; and a laugh went round the camp at Andy's expense. Then Batterpole continued:—

"When we come to Hardscrabble it was sundown, so we tied up the raft an' teetered up the hill to Old Man Peters's fur the night. Yez all knows Old Man Peters's gal Nellie, ez there ain't no tidier an honester slip on the hull river. Nellie was purty glad to see Sandy an' me, ef I does say it that shouldn't; an' she chinned with us so ez she didn't hev no time to talk to some other chaps ez was puttin' up there that night. An' this, ez I mighty soon ketched onter, didn't seem nohow to suit one of the fellers. He was a likely-lookin' chap enough, but very dark-complected an' sallow-like, with a bad eye, showin' a lot o' the white. An eye like that's a bad thing in a horse, an' I reckon 't ain't a heap better in a man.

"Sez I to Nellie, sez I: 'Nellie, who's yer yaller friend over there by the windy, which looks like he'd like to make sassage-meat o' my head?'

"Nellie's eyes flashed, an' she answered up right sharp: ''T ain't no friend of mine. 'T ain't no sort of a man at all. It's only somethin' the freshet left on the shore, an' the pigs wouldn't eat nohow.'

"You bet I laffed, an' so did Sandy. Ez I heern later on, the chap had ben a-botherin' roun' Nellie all winter, fur all she'd gin him the mitten straight an' sent him about his bizness heaps o' times. I reckon the feller suspicioned we was a-laffin' at him, fur he squinted at me blacker 'n ever.

"Purty soon Nellie got fussin' roun' the room, over nigh to where the yaller chap was a-settin', an' he spoke to her, saft-like, so ez we couldn't hear what he was a-gittin' at. Nellie she jest sniffed kinder scornful; an' then, what would yez suppose that chap done? He reached out suddent, grabbed her leetle wrist so hard 'at she cried out, an' slapped her—yes, slapped her right across the mouth. Nellie jest stood there white, like a image, an' never said one word; an' I seed the red marks o' the blackguard's fingers come out acrost her cheek. Next minit yaller face jumped fur the door,—an' me arter him, you kin bet yer life! He was a-makin' tracks purty lively, but I kin run a leetle myself, an' I was onter him 'gin Sandy an' the rest was outer the door. An' didn't I whale him, now? I twisted his knife outer his hand, an' I laced him till I was clean tuckered out. But the feller was grit, an' never hollered oncet. When I quit he laid still a bit. Then he riz up slowly, started to walk away, turned half round, an' hissed at me jest like a big snake er 'n old sassy gander:—

"'I'll—pay—you!'

"'Git!' sez I, an' he purceeded to git, joggin' along towards Woodstock.

"Well, now, how thet Nellie did look at me, proud an' grateful like, when I come back to the house; an' sez I to myself, 'Jabez Ephraim, you've ben an' gone an' put in the big licks there, old feller!' But I never sed nuthin' about it at all to Nellie, nor Nellie didn't to me. Now yer a-smilin', boys, so I may remark jest here, to save yez from interruptin' hereafter, thet I've ben to Old Man Peters's sence, on several occasions; an' nex' summer I hope to see yez all acceptin' the hospitality of Mrs. Jabez E. Batterpole! But thet ain't no part o' this here story!

"Nex' day Sandy an' me hed a fine run down by Woodstock. The old raft rid kinder loose, however, an' we blamed up an' down the fellers ez had pinned her together to the Falls. Howsumever, we tightened her up a bit, an' calc'lated she'd hold through.

"Ez we come in hearin' of the Meductic, Sandy sez to me, sez he: 'Jabe, old 'Ductic is a-hoopin' her up to-day. There's a big head o' water on, an' I'm thinkin' we'll hev to keep our eyes peeled. It'll take some skittish steerin', fur ef the old raft jest teches the rocks she'll go all to slivers.'

"'Right you be!' sez I. An' we braced up.

"Now, ez we soon seen, old 'Ductic was jest a-rearin'. The big raft shivered like a skeered filly ez she ketched the first nip of them cross-currents, an' she commenced ter bulge an' sag like a nonsense. Sandy was on the forrard sweep, but obsarvin' thet, ez the currents was a-settin', he warn't no use forrard, I called him aft to help me. Ez I turned my head a leetle mite to holler to him I ketched a squint o' that yaller chap a-steppin' in behind a tree on the bluff.

"There warn't no time to be a-considerin' of yaller chaps, fur the raft was settin' dead onter the big rocks in the middle o' the rapid, an' Sandy an' me was a-heavin' an' a gruntin' on them sweeps to swing her cl'ar. 'She'll make it,' sez Sandy, 't last—an' that very minit there comes a ringin' shot from the bluff, an' I feels like it was a dash o' scaldin' water 'long the tip o' my shoulder-blade. Yez'll notice, I was leanin' forrard at the time.

"'I'm shot!' sez I; an' then I sees Sandy's sweep swing round, an' Sandy drops on the logs.

"I jumped cl'ar over to where he laid, but straightways he hops up an' yells, 'It's only me arm! Look out for the raft, Jabe!'

"I looked out, boys, you bet! But she was jest sheerin roun' onter them rocks, an' no man's arm could 'a' stopped her. I looked up at the bluff, an' ketched a sight o' the yaller blackguard standin' there ez cool ez ye please, mind yez, a-loadin' up fur a fresh shot.

"I hadn't no time fur another squint at him, fur next minit the old raft struck the rocks. She jest tumbled to pieces like a box o' matches. I hustled Sandy out to the tail o' the raft jest in time, an' told him to jump an' strike out fur all was in him, an' I'd see him through er else we'd kinder shuffle off together.

"'Correct!' sez Sandy, chipper ez ye please; an' then we both jumped, me with a grip like grim death onter Sandy's belt.

"Boys, but it was a caution to see them waves, an' cross-currents, an' chutes, an' big ripples, an' eddies, an' whirlpools, how they jest sucked us down an' slapped us up an' smothered us an' chucked us roun' like chips. I jes kep' my mouth shet an' said my pray'rs fur all was in me. An' ez for swallerin' water—I must 'a' tuk in half a bar'l. How we was kep' cl'ar of the rocks was a miracle, out an' out. A queer light got ter dancin' an' shiftin' front o' my eyes, an' the singin' in my ears was gittin' kind o' pleasant like, an' I calc'late that yaller chap must a gone away purty well satisfied; when, on the suddent, a sorter shock brung me to, an' I felt my feet tech bottom. There was a sight o' life left in Jabez Ephraim yet, ye can bet yer pile.

"I straightened up an' found 'at we was in a quiet eddy, at the foot o' the rapids, on the furder side o' the stream. The water warn't up to me arm-pits, neether. Ez for Sandy, the starch was clean knocked out o' him, so I jest hauled him ashore an' spread him out on the rocks to dry while I hev a leetle o' thet water off my stummick. In half a minit I felt better, an' then I went an' tumbled Sandy roun' till he was considerable lighter in the hold. Presently he come to an' opened his eyes.

"I swan, boys, we didn't hurry noane. We jest laid there in the sun a matter of an hour er so, kinder recooperatin'. Then we pinted up river. When the folks heerd what had tuk place, yez'll allow there was lots o' the boys out lookin' for the yaller chap. But he'd got scarce, an' what's more, he's stayed scarce. Any of yez fellers ever seen him?"

"Ef ever I runs agin him," exclaimed Andy Mitchell, in a burst of generous enthusiasm, "I'll feed him to my team fur Injun Devil."



The Stone Dog.

It was drawing towards sunset, and I had reached the outskirts of the city, which here came to an abrupt end upon the very edge of the marshes. The marshes stretched before me bare and gray, with here and there a flush of evening color, serving but to emphasize their utterness of desolation. Here and there, also, lay broad pools, their shore and water gradually intermerging through a sullen fringe of reeds. The river, which had been my day-long companion—a noisy stream flowing through breezy hills, and villages, and vineyards—having loitered to draw its circle about the city walls, had fallen under a spell. It met me here a featureless, brimming ditch, and wound away in torpid coils to the monotonous horizon. And now this shrunken city, its edges dead and fallen to decay, these naked levels, where not even a bittern's voice had courage to startle the stillness, filled me, in spite of myself, with a vague apprehensiveness. Just as one who is groping in profound darkness feels his eyes dilate in the effort to catch the least glimmer of light, I found my senses all on the strain, attentive to their very utmost. Though the atmosphere was heavy and deadening, my eyes were so watchful that not even the uprising of some weeds, trodden down, perhaps, hours before by a passing foot, escaped their notice. My nostrils were keenly conscious of the sick metallic odor from the marshes, of the pleasanter perfume of dry reed panicles, of the chill, damp smell of mouldering stone-work, and of a strangely disagreeable haunting essence from a certain dull-colored weed, whose leaves, which shot up within tempting reach of my hand, I had idly bruised in passing. My ears, for all their painful expectancy, heard at first no sound save the rustle of a frightened mouse in the dead grass near; but at length they detected the gurgle of running water, made audible by a faint stray wind which breathed in my direction.

Instinctively I turned and followed the sound. On my right a huge fragment of the wall jutted into the marsh, and passing this I saw before me, brightened by the sunset, a narrow stretch of dry, baked soil, raised somewhat above the level of the pools, and strewn with shattered bricks and scraps of tiling and potsherds. The musical lapsing of the water now fell upon my ears distinctly, and I saw a little way off a quaint old fountain, standing half a stonecast clear of the wall. With the sunlight bathing it, the limpid water sparkling away from its base, it was the only cheerful object in the landscape; yet I felt an unaccountable reluctance to approach it. The evil enchantment which seemed to brood over the place, the weird fantasies chasing each other through my unconsenting brain, annoyed me greatly, for I profess to hold my imagination pretty well under control, and to have but small concern for ghostly horrors. Shaking aside my nervousness, I began to whistle softly as I strolled up to examine the old fountain. But on noticing how lugubrious, how appropriate to the neighborhood and my feelings was the air that came to my lips, I laughed aloud. At the sudden sound of my voice I felt both startled and somewhat abashed. Laughter here was clearly out of place; and besides, the echo that followed was obtrusively and unpleasantly distinct, appearing to come both from a deep-arched doorway in the wall near by, and from the vaulted hollow of the basin of the fount, which lay just beneath the dog's jaws. As I should have said before, the fountain was a great cube of darkish stone, along the top of which a stone dog crouched; and the water gushed from between its carved fore-paws into a deep basin, the side of which was cleft two thirds of the way to its base. Through this break, which I saw to be an old one from the layers of green film lining it, the stream bubbled out and ran off among barren heaps of debris, to sink itself in the weeds of some stagnant pool. The head of the dog was thrust forward and rested upon the fore-paws as if the brute were sleeping; but its half-open eyes seemed to watch the approaches to the doorway in the wall. As a piece of sculpture, the animal was simply marvellous. In its gathered limbs, though relaxed and perfectly at rest, a capacity for swift and terrible action seemed to hold itself in reserve, and a breath almost appeared to come from the half-opened jaws, momentarily dimming the crystal that smoothly gushed beneath. No scrap of vegetation could the rill persuade out of the inexorable sterility around, saving for some curdled greenish mosses that waved slowly from the sides of the basin, or pointed from root-hold on brick and shard, where the small current loitered a little. I am not a taker of notes, nor, for all my vagrant and exploring tendencies, am I a very close observer. Nevertheless, though it is now a year and a half since what I am telling of took place, the minutest details of that strange fountain, and of the scene about it, are as definitely before me as if I had been there but yesterday. I am not going to inflict them all upon my reader, yet would do so without a spark of compunction, if by such means I could dim the all too vivid remembrance. The experiences that befell me by this fountain have shaken painfully the confidence I once enjoyed as to the fulness of my knowledge of the powers of things material. I cannot say that I have become credulous; but I have ceased to regard as necessarily absurd whatever I find it difficult to explain.

From the fountain it was not a score of paces to the doorway in the wall, which was sunk below the surface of the ground, so that the crumbling arch surmounting it was scarcely on a level with my feet. Steep narrow stairs of brick work, consisting, I think, of seven steps, led down to it. The doorway had once been elaborately ornamented with mouldings in yellow stucco, most of which had fallen, and all but choked the stairs. The crude pale color of these fragments jarred harshly against the olive of the damp stone foundations and the stained brown of the mouldy brick. After my usual fashion, I set myself to explore this doorway, in my interest half forgetting my apprehensions. As I descended the steps the sound of the running water faded out, with a suddenness which caught my ear, though failing to fix my attention. But as I made to grasp the great rusty iron doorhandle, which was curiously wrought of two dragons intertwisted neck and tail, again my every sense sprang on the alert, and a chill of terror crept tingling through my frame. My straining ears could detect not the slightest sound from the fountain, which was within plain view behind me. I felt as if some eye were fixed upon me. I faced sharply about and set foot on the steps to ascend. And I saw the water at that very moment burst forth afresh between the feet of the dog, from whose eye a dull white glow seemed just vanishing. It must be borne in mind that the beast's flank was toward the doorway, and, in consequence, only one of its half-closed eyes visible from where I stood. I ascended and went straight to the fountain. I grasped the great stone head and gave it a wrench, but found it just as immovable as it looked. Vexed at my idiotic fears, I vowed to take my fill of investigating that doorway, and to find out if there lay anything of interest beyond it. I knew this part of the city was quite deserted, and that no outraged householder in the flesh was likely to confront my trespassings. But the last of the daylight was now upon me, and I thought best to postpone my enterprise till the morrow. As I betook myself back toward humanity and lodgings, I felt that eye piercing me till I rounded the buttress of the wall; but I denied my folly permission to look back.

The following morning was spent among the curious old cafes, the unexpected squares, and the gorgeous but dilapidated churches of the inhabited city. All these things, however, failed to interest me. With more time on my hands than I quite knew what to do with, I yet felt as if my time were being wasted. The spell of the dead outskirts, of the shadowless dead marshes, of that mysterious and inscrutable dog, clung to me with unrelenting persistence. And the early afternoon found me standing again by the fountain.

Familiarly I scooped up the cool water and drank it from my palm. I scattered it over the parched bricks and clay, which instantly soaked it in. I dashed a few drops also, playfully, upon the image of the dog, which had taken, the evening before, such fantastic liberties with my overwrought fancy. But these drops gathered themselves up nimbly into little shining balls, and fled off to the ground like so much quicksilver. I looked out upon the wan pools and marshes, whence a greenish mist steamed up, and seemed to poison the sunlight streaming through it. It is possible that this semblance of an unwholesome mist was not so much the fault of the marshes as a condition of the atmosphere, premonitory of the fierce electric storms and the earthquake which visited the city that same night. The greenish light beat full on the sunken doorway, so that only the lowermost steps remained in shadow. However unattractive the temporary complexion of the sun, I was glad of his company as I descended the steps. The twisting dragons of the doorhandle attracted me as I drew near. As for the dog, I had exorcised it from my imagination with those nimble drops of water; and for the old door, it looked as if a little persuasion would make it yield whatever secret it might chance to have in keeping. But certainly, if I might credit my ears, which had once more grown abnormally attentive, the sound of the water had ceased. My flesh began to creep a little, though I told myself the fading of the sound was entirely due to my position,—that the walls of the stairway intercepted it. At the same time I felt that eye watching me, and a chilly sweat broke out upon my limbs; but I execrated my folly, and refused to turn my head. Meanwhile, so alert had become my hearing that the escape of some gases, bubbling up from the bottom of a pool far out in the marsh, resounded as if close beside me. I tried to force the bolt back, but in vain; and I had just come to the conclusion that a sharp wrench would break away bolt, socket, and all, when an uncontrollable instinct of fear turned me about to see what peril threatened. The head of the dog was facing directly toward me, and its eyes, now wide open, flamed upon me with strange and awful whiteness. I sprang up the steps and was at the beast's side in an instant; but I found the head, as before, resting upon the paws, the eyes half closed and dull, the water gushing down into the basin.

As I bathed my shaking hands and clammy forehead, I laughed with deep irritation. I said then to myself that the ignorant could hardly be blamed for even the wildest superstitions, when a cool-headed and enlightened modern like myself was so wrought upon by the fictions of his brain. I philosophized for some time, however, before I got the better of my repugnance to that doorway. I humorously assured myself that, at the worst, this incomprehensible beast was securely anchored to his fountain; and that if anything terrible were at the other side of the door which I was going to open, it surely could not be capable of much, good or ill, after its century or so of imprisonment. Then I walked firmly straight to the doorway and down the seven steps; and I knew that first one eye was turned upon me, then both; the water was silent before I had gone ten paces.

It was useless trying to conquer the creeping of my skin, the fear that pricked along my nerves; so, bidding my reason ignore these minor discomforts, I busied myself with the problem of loosening the bolt-socket. It occurred to me at the time that there might be an easier entrance at the other side of the wall, as nothing in this neighborhood was in good enough repair to boast of more than three walls standing; but no, that would have been a concession to my illusions. I chipped away at the soft stone with my knife. I jerked hard upon the bolt, which gave a little, with clatter of falling stucco; and on the instant I faced around like lightning, in an indescribable horror. There, at the very top of the steps, crouched the dog, its head thrust down close to my face. The stone jaws were grinning apart. A most appalling menace was in the wide, white eyes. I know I tugged once more upon the bolt, for a great piece of the door and arch crumbled and came away; and I thought, as the head closed down, that I made a wild spring to get past the crouching form. Then reason and consciousness forsook me.

When sense returned, I found myself lying on a pile of rags, in a darkish, garlicky hut, with the morning sunlight streaming in through the open door. I sat up, with the memory of my horror vivid upon me, and wondered, with a sigh of relief at the change, what sort of a place I had got to. I was in a very different quarter of the city from the neighborhood of the fountain. Here were still the ruined outskirts, still the desolate marshes, but the highlands backing the city on the north began to rise just beyond the hut's door. I got up, but found my right shoulder almost disabled. I could not lift my arm without great pain. Yet my clothing was not torn, and bore no marks save of dust and travel. I was about to uncover and examine the damaged shoulder, when in came the owner of the hut, an honest-looking, heavy-set muleteer, who showed all his teeth in his gratification at observing my recovery.

As I gathered from my host, he had had occasion to pass what he called the "Fonte del Cano" near sunset of the afternoon preceding. He had found me lying in a stupor, face down, across the basin of the fount, and directly beneath the jaws of the dog, which he piously crossed himself on mentioning. Not stopping to look for explanations, though he saw the old door was partly broken away, he had put me on his mule and made haste homeward, in fear of the coming of twilight in that grim place. There had come up a great storm in the night, and then an earthquake, shaking down many old walls that had long been toppling to their fall. After sunrise, being a bold fellow, he had gone again to the place, in hope of finding some treasure revealed by the disturbance. Report said there was treasure of some kind hidden within the wall; but none had dared to look for it since the day, years before his birth, when two men undertaking the search had gone mad, with the great white eyes of the dog turned terribly upon them. There were other strange things said about the spot, he acknowledged reluctantly, which, however, he would not talk of even in daylight; and for himself, in truth, he knew but little of them. Now, he continued, in place of anything having been laid bare, the whole top of the wall had fallen down and buried steps and doorway in masses of ruin. But the fountain and the dog were untouched, and he had not cared to go nearer than was necessary.

Having reached my lodgings, I rewarded the honest fellow and sent him away in high feather, all-forgetful of the treasure which the earthquake had failed to unearth for him. Once alone in my room, I made haste to examine my shoulder. I found it green and livid. I found also, with a sick feeling which I shall not soon forget, that it was bruised on either side with deep prints of massive teeth.



The Barn on the Marsh.

It had not always stood on the marsh. When I was a little boy of seven, it occupied the rear of our neighbor's yard, not a stone's throw from the rectory gate, on one of the windy, sunshiny spurs of South Mountain. A perpetual eyesore to the rector; but I cannot help thinking, as I view it now in the concentrated light of memory, that it did artistic service in the way of a foil to the loveliness of the rectory garden. This garden was the rector's delight, but to my restless seven years it was a sort of gay-colored and ever-threatening bugbear.

Weeding, and especially such thorough, radical weeding as alone would satisfy the rector's conscience, was my detestation; and, moreover, just at the time of being called upon to weed, there was sure to be something else of engrossing importance which my nimble little wits had set themselves upon doing.

But I never found courage to betray my lack of sympathy in all its iciness. The sight of the rector's enthusiasm filled me ever with a sense of guilt, and I used to weed quite diligently, at times.

One morning the rector had lured me out early, before breakfast, while the sun yet hung low above the shining marshes. We were working cheerfully together at the carrot-beds. The smell of the moist earth and of the dewy young carrot-plants, bruised by my hasty fingers, comes vividly upon my senses even now.

Suddenly I heard the rector cry, "Bother!" in a tone which spoke volumes. I saw he had broken his hoe short off at the handle. I stopped work with alacrity, and gazed with commiserating interest, while I began wiping my muddy little fingers on my knickerbockers in bright anticipation of some new departure which should put a pause to the weeding.

In a moment or two the vexed wrinkles smoothed themselves out of the rector's brow, and he turned to me with the proposal that we should go over to our neighbor's and repair the damage.

One end of the barn, as we knew, was used for a workshop. We crossed the road, let down the bars, put to flight a flock of pigeons that were feeding among the scattered straw, and threw open the big barn doors.

There, just inside, hung the dead body of our neighbor, his face distorted and purple. And, while I stood sobbing with horror, the rector cut him down with the draw-knife which he had come to borrow.

Soon after this tragedy, the barn was moved down to the marsh, to be used for storing hay and farm implements. And by the time the scene had faded from my mind, the rector gave up the dear delights of his garden, and took us off to a distant city parish. Not until I had reached eighteen, and the dignity of college cap and gown, did I revisit the salty breezes of South Mountain.

Then I came to see friends who were living in the old rectory. About two miles away, by the main road, dwelt certain other friends, with whom I was given to spending most of my evenings, and who possessed some strange charm which would never permit me to say good-night at anything like a seasonable hour.

The distance, as I said, to these friends was about two miles, if you followed the main road; but there was a short cut, a road across the marsh, used chiefly by the hay-makers and the fishermen, not pleasant to travel in wet weather, but good enough for me at all times in the frame of mind in which I found myself.

This road, on either hand, was bordered by a high rail fence, along which rose, here and there, the bleak spire of a ghostly and perishing Lombardy poplar. This is the tree of all least suited to those wind-beaten regions, but none other will the country people plant. Close up to the road, at one point, curved a massive sweep of red dike, and further to the right stretched the miles on miles of naked marsh, till they lost themselves in the lonely, shifting waters of the Basin.

About twenty paces back from the fence, with its big doors opening toward the road, a conspicuous landmark in all my nightly walks, stood the barn.

I remembered vividly enough, but in a remote, impersonal sort of way, the scene on that far-off sunny summer morning. As, night after night, I swung past the ancient doors, my brain in a pleasant confusion, I never gave the remembrance any heed. Finally, I ceased to recall it, and the rattling of the wind in the time-warped shingles fell on utterly careless ears.

One night, as I started homeward upon the verge of twelve, the marsh seemed all alive with flying gleams. The moon was past the full, white and high; the sky was thick with small black clouds, streaming dizzily across the moon's face, and a moist wind piped steadily, in from the sea.

I was walking swiftly, not much alive to outward impressions, scarce noticing even the strange play of the moon-shadows over the marshes, and had got perhaps a stone's throw past the barn, when a creeping sensation about my skin, and a thrill of nervous apprehension made me stop suddenly and take a look behind.

The impulse seized me unawares, or I should have laughed at myself and gone on without yielding to such a weakness. But it was too late. My gaze darted unerringly to the barn, whose great doors stood wide open. There, swaying almost imperceptibly in the wind, hung the body of our neighbor, as I had seen it that dreadful morning long ago.

For a moment I could hear again my childish sobs, and the remembrance of that horror filled me with self-pity. Then, as the roots of my hair began to stir, my feet set themselves instinctively for flight. This instinct, however, I promptly and sternly repressed. I knew all about these optical illusions, and tried to congratulate myself on this opportunity for investigating one so interesting and vivid. At the same time I gave a hasty side-thought to what would have happened had I been one of the superstitious farmhands or fishermen of the district. I should have taken to my heels in desperate terror, and been ever after faithfully persuaded of having looked upon a veritable ghost.

I said to myself that the apparition, if I looked upon it steadfastly, would vanish as I approached, or, more probably, resolve itself into some chance combination of moonlight and shadows. In fact, my reason was perfectly satisfied that the ghostly vision was due solely to the association of ideas,—I was fresh from my classes in philosophy,—aided and abetted by my own pretty vivid imagination. Yet the natural man, this physical being of mine, revolted in every fibre of the flesh from any closer acquaintance with the thing.

I began, with reluctant feet, to retrace my steps; but as I did so, the vision only grew so much the clearer; and a cold perspiration broke out upon me. Step by step I approached, till I stood just outside the fence, face to face with the apparition.

I leaned against the fence, looking through between the rails; and now, at this distance, every feature came out with awful distinctness—all so horrible in its distortion that I cannot bear to describe it.

As each fresh gust of wind hissed through the chinks, I could see the body swing before it, heavily and slowly. I had to bring all my philosophy to bear, else my feet would have carried me off in a frenzy of flight.

At last I reached the conclusion that since my sight was so helplessly deceived, I should have to depend upon the touch. In no other way could I detect the true basis of the illusion; and this way was a hard one. By much argument and self-persuasion I prevailed upon myself to climb the fence, and with a sort of despairing doggedness to let myself down on the inside.

Just then the clouds thickened over the face of the moon, and the light faded rapidly. To get down inside the fence with that thing was, for a moment, simply sickening, and my eyes dilated with the intensity of my stare. Then common-sense came to the rescue, with a revulsion of feeling, and I laughed—though not very mirthfully—at the thoroughness of my scare.

With an assumption of coolness and defiance I walked right up to the open doors; and when so close that I could have touched it with my walking-stick, the thing swayed gently and faced me in the light of the re-appearing moon.

Could my eyes deceive me? It certainly was our neighbor.

Scarcely knowing what I did, I thrust out my stick and touched it, shrinking back as I did so. What I touched, plain instantly to my sight, was a piece of wood and iron,—some portion of a mowing-machine or reaper, which had been, apparently, repainted and hung up across the door-pole to dry.

It swayed in the wind. The straying fingers of the moonbeams through the chinks pencilled it strangely, and the shadows were huddled black behind it. But now it hung revealed, with no more likeness to a human body than any average well-meaning farm-implement might be expected to have.

With a huge sigh of relief I turned away. As I climbed the fence once more I gave a parting glance toward the yawning doorway of the barn on the marsh. There, as plain as before I had pierced the bubble, swung the body of my neighbor. And all the way home, though I would not turn my head, I felt it at my heels.



Captain Joe and Jamie.

How the wind roared in from the sea over the Tantramar dike!

It was about sunset, and a fierce orange-red gleam, thrusting itself through a rift in the clouds that blackened the sky, cast a strange glow over the wide, desolate marshes. A mile back rose the dark line of the uplands, with small, white farmhouses already hidden in shadow.

Captain Joe Boultbee had just left his wagon standing in the dike road, with his four-year-old boy on the seat. He was on the point of crossing the dike, to visit the little landing-place where he kept his boat, when above the rush and whistle of the gale he heard Jamie's voice. He hurried back a few paces before he could make out what the little fellow was saying.

"Pap," cried the child, "I want to get out of the wagon. 'Fraid Bill goin' to run away!"

"Oh, nonsense!" answered Captain Joe. "Bill won't run away. He doesn't know how. You stay there, and don't be frightened, and I'll be right back."

"But, pap, the wind blows me too hard," piped the small voice, pleadingly.

"Oh, all right," said the father, and returning to the wagon he lifted the child gently down and set him on his feet. "Now," he continued, "it's too windy for you out on the other side of the dike. You run over and sit on that big stick, where the wind can't get at you; and wait for me. And be sure you don't let Bill run away."

As he spoke the Captain noticed that the horse, ordinarily one of the most stolid of creatures, seemed to-night peculiarly uneasy; with his head up in the air he was sniffing nervously, and glancing from side to side. As Jamie was trudging through the long grass to the seat which his father had shown him, the Captain said, "Why, Bill does seem scary, after all; who'd have thought this wind would scare him?"

"Bill don't like it," replied Jamie; "it blows him too hard." And, glad to be out of the gale, which took his breath away, the little fellow seated himself contentedly in the shelter of the dike. Just then there was a clatter of wheels and a crash. Bill had whirled sharply about in the narrow road, upsetting and smashing the light wagon.

Now, utterly heedless of his master's angry shouts, he was galloping in mad haste back toward the uplands, with the fragments of the wagon at his heels. The Captain and Jamie watched him flying before the wind, a red spectre in the lurid light. Then, turning away once more to see to his boat, the Captain remarked, "Well, laddie, I guess we'll have to foot it back when we get through here. But Bill's going to have a licking for this!"

Left to himself, Jamie crouched down behind the dike, a strange, solitary little figure in the wide waste of the marshes. Though the full force of the gale could not reach him, his long fair curls were blown across his face, and he clung determinedly to his small, round hat. For a while he watched the beam of red light, till the jagged fringe of clouds closed over it, and it was gone. Then, in the dusk, he began to feel a little frightened; but he knew his father would soon be back, and he didn't like to call him again. He listened to the waves washing, surging, beating, roaring, on the shoals beyond the dike. Presently he heard them, every now and then, thunder in against the very dike itself. Upon this he grew more frightened, and called to his father several times. But of course the small voice was drowned in the tumult of wind and wave, and the father, working eagerly on the other side of the dike, heard no sound of it.

Close by the shelter in which Jamie was crouching there were several great tubs, made by sawing molasses-hogsheads into halves. These tubs, in fishing season, were carried by the fishermen in their boats, to hold the shad as they were taken from the net. Now they stood empty and dry, but highly flavored with memories of their office. Into the nearest tub Jamie crawled, after having shouted in vain to his father.

To the child's loneliness and fear the tub looked "cosey," as he called it. He curled up in the bottom, and felt a little comforted.