ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 123 



camp fire, I told Steve and the other Indians my 

 experience in the bedroom, and asked them if they 

 could give any clue to the mystery. Their faces 

 showed strange emotion and horror, and at first 

 there was a long silence, in which no one spoke. 

 " Why ! did you not know ? " began Steve at last. 

 " I tell you. Two years ago Ryan's wife came to 

 the house at Long Harbour. At first she seemed 

 all right and was kind to us Indians. By and by 

 she seemed queer, and often said, when we passed 

 and brought furs, that the quiet would kill her. 

 She'd sit for hours on the porch looking out to sea 

 and saying nothing when you spoke to her. One 

 day las' winter I come in from Shoe Hill with my 

 furs, an' Ryan ask me to stay a day or two and help 

 clean up, so I did. Next morning I go to the boat 

 to get some things, when I see Mrs. Ryan come out 

 on the porch and look about. I go towards her, 

 when she pulled out a box of matches and lit one. 

 Then she walk along the front and throw the match 

 into a barrel of gunpowder standing there. There 

 was a great blow-up, and I ran and raised her up, 

 an' she was 'most dead. Ryan was standing on top 

 of stairs when the barrel went off, and was blown 

 to the bottom, but not much hurt. Together we 

 picked the woman up and carried her to the upstairs 

 room. There she soon died, and no one has been in 

 that room since" 



Philip Ryan continued to live in his lonely house 

 at the mouth of the Long Harbour, where in after 

 years he entertained three of my hunting friends, 

 St. George Littledale, Captain Lumsden and Captain 

 the Hon. Gerald Legge, whom I sent to him, and 

 for whom he procured Indians. He went to Belloram 



