228 THE LAST DAY AT CHEE-HA. 



" His bones are marrowless !" said E. 



" And his eyes lack speculation !" I rejoined ; 

 " and when I put this and that together, and reflect 

 on these anomalous events, and these seemingly 

 contradictory statements, I confess, gentlemen," 

 said I, with a face composed to seriousness, " that I 

 have strange misgivings about tliio same buck ! 

 His seeming to be shot, yet moving as if unhurt ! 

 his losing a leg, yet running off without it ! his 

 bloodlessness ! Ms disappearance at ' May's Folly /' 

 the confusion of the hounds and the unaccount- 

 able dispersion of the pack ! impress upon my 

 mind the possibility of this being no deer of flesh 

 and blood but the < Spectre Buck, 5 of which we 

 have heard traditionally, but which I never sup- 

 posed had been met by daylight !" 



" The tradition ! the tradition !" cried several 

 voices, impatiently. 



" It is simple enough," I rejoined, " and brief. 

 Some forty or fifty years ago, there lived in this 

 region, then thinly settled, a German, or man of 

 German extraction, named May. He constructed, 

 we are told (just at the place where we so mys- 

 teriously lost our dogs to-day), those embankments, 

 of which the remains are yet visible ; and which 

 were intended to reclaim these extensive marshes 

 from waste. They failed of their purpose involv- 



