A BED OF BOUGHS 163 



" ' Then the fear-chill gathered o'er me, 

 Like a shroud around me cast, 

 As I sank upon the snow-drift 

 Where the shadow hunter passed. 



" ' And the otter-trappers found me. 

 Before the break of day, 

 With my dark hair blanched and whitened 

 As the snow in which I lay. 



" ' But they spoke not as they raised me ; 

 For they knew that in the night 

 I had seen the shadow hunter 

 And had withered in his sight. 



" ' Sancta Maria speed us ! 

 The sun Is fallen low: 

 Before us lies the valley 

 Of the Walker of the Snow ! ' " 



"Ah!" exclaimed my companion. "Let us pile 

 on more of those dry birch-logs j I feel both the 

 ' fear-chill ' and the ' cold-chill ' creeping over me. 

 How far is it to the valley of the Neversink ? " 

 "About three or four hours' march, the man said." 

 " I hope we have no haunted valleys to cross ? " 

 "None," said I, "but we pass an old log cabin 

 about which there hangs a ghostly superstition. At 

 a certain hour in the night, during the time the bark 

 is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to 

 steal from it and grope its way into the wilderness. 

 The tradition runs that her lover, who was a bark- 

 peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by his rival, 

 who felled a tree upon him while they were at 

 work. The girl, who helped her mother cook for 

 the ' hands, ' was crazed by the shock, and that night 

 stole forth into the woods and was never seen or 



