one morning in January, my wife, who was get- 

 ting the breakfast, while I went through the vil- 

 lage witli my bell to wake our pupils, discovered 

 on the floor of the shed, just in front of the thresh- 

 old of the door from the kitchen, a cabalistic 

 mark. It was a rude, oblong figure, in dull red, 

 with little crosses at the corner, and a grinning 

 visage at the center. It was the work of one of 

 the shamans, and they believe, or at least say, 

 that if a person steps across one of these signs 

 unsvispectingly a disease-demon will enter his 

 body. 



In some excitement as well as indignation my 

 wife called my attention to it, as soon as I re- 

 turned. I could not refrain from laughing, yet 

 1 felt mystified and uncomfortable. We had not 

 the least doubt who had placed it there ; but how 

 lie had contrived to do so was what puzzled us. 



' ' Now how in the world did the old torment 

 get in ? " was Mrs. Gambell's first question. We 

 examined the walls of the shed, the roof and the 

 floor. Every plank was nailed fast. When both 

 of VIS were in the schoolroom we always kept our 

 outer door bolted, and so we were sure that he 

 could not have slipped in covertly. In fact, we 

 were mystified, and my wife shed tears of vexa- 

 tion. 



" Oh dear ! " she lamented. ' ' To think that we 

 can have nothing and do nothing without being 

 intruded on and spied upon by this malicious 

 wretch ! It is horrible ! " 



I sought to laugh over it and ridicule the sham- 



an, but the thing rendered me more uneasy than 

 I liked to confess. At night I lay awake for hours, 

 listening for sounds in the shed. A few days 

 later, following a severe snowstorm, I was pros- 

 trated for two days by a bad cold. It was not 

 prudent for me to leave the house, or even to go 

 into the schoolroom, and as I lay looking out of 

 window during the few hours of daylight, I had 

 for encouragement on my sick-bed the sight of 

 Aabwook walking up and down before the liouse 

 waving his arms to and fro and muttering strange 

 imprecations — to stimulate the disease-demon 

 which he believed he had summoned into my 

 body. 



His behavior tortured my wife so much that 

 she fell ill of a cold herself. While taking care 

 of her, I noticed that Toolluk had joined Aabwook 

 in his perambulations outside our door. 



As long as the short daylight lasted, I could 

 see them going up and down, muttering, groaning 

 and swinging their arms. Whether they kept 

 up their incantations all night, I do not know, 

 for I was too anxious about my wife and too 

 nearly ill myself, to watch them after dark. 



The next day they were there again, and it be- 

 came well-nigh maddening to see them pass. It 

 was disheartening enough to be ill in a heathen 

 land, three thousand miles from a physician ; but 

 to watch those two sorcerers, in their efforts to 

 render our illness a mortal one, was far more de- 

 pressing. Their malevolent antics at last worked 

 on my nerves to such an extent that I was hardly 



