NEW BRUNSWICK. 131 



made considerable noise, anyway, and poked my head 

 into a bush, and tried to burrow under the snow. This 

 lasted some time; but hearing nothing more, and not 

 finding myself killed, my courage returned ; I took out 

 my head, and slowly crawled up the bank. Peering 

 carefully over the edge, I saw a stump where the old 

 woman had been crouching, burnt at the top, with some 

 snow on it; there was a dead bush and roots at the 

 bottom, while a little further off lay a quantity of dead 

 birch bark, waving about in the wind. ' Abe,' said I 

 to myself, * you have been an awful fool to take a fired 

 stump, a little snow, and some birch bark for a ghost. 

 Never do so again.' And I never have, and have never 

 been so scared from that day to this." 



After a hearty laugh at Abraham's fright, Robert was 

 called upon, and responded as follows : 



" I cannot tell you a ghost story, but one of as scared 

 a man as ever was seen. It happened at this very place, 

 too, when we were camped on this spot, and was brought 

 to my mind by what you were reading to-day of the man 

 hunting a grizzly bear, and leaving off because the track 

 got too fresh. Jim Baker was with us. He had lived 

 most of his life in the settlements, and had only just 

 come among us, but could play the fiddle and sing 

 a song, and must have had a good ear for music, for 

 among the first things he did was to learn to call moose. 

 He was uncommonly proud of the performance, and 

 though he had never seen a moose, promised to keep the 

 camp in meat. Well, he kept calling all the time, and 

 sure enough one day, while we were camped here, a bull 

 answered. 



