A PINELAND SPECTRE. 



ALLAN HENDRICKS. 



The spell of the woods was on us. The 

 magic of the pinelands had driven from us 

 the worry of the restless world of business. 

 About us hung the deep gloom of a sum- 

 mer night. At our feet lay Mullet lake in its 

 belt of pines; on our right was Pigeon 

 river; farther to the right, down the lake, we 

 could see the fire of an Indian camp; while 

 off to the left, across the dark water, shone 

 the brightly lighted windows of the Mullet 

 Lake House. The moon swung slowly into 

 view above the tree tops and shot its first 

 rays faintly toward the distant shore, giving 

 only an earnest of its coming brilliance. As 

 we lounged on balsam branches, indolently 

 talking of our plans, we could hear the oar 

 strokes of some belated fisherman, and could 

 dimly see the sparkling wake his boat left 

 behind it, although the craft itself was hid- 

 den in the shadow. Behind us the hoot of 

 an owl broke the quiet of the dark pine for- 

 est that stretched away to the East and 

 South. We were at peace with all the 

 world; the insistent restlessness of far-off 

 city life was forgotten in the soothing still- 

 ness that brooded the lake. 



As the moon floated over our heads our 

 talk, at first gay, drifted to the subject of 

 ghosts. Hilton began it by telling of a 

 phantom trout which he once had hooked 

 in the Nepigon, and which unaccountably 

 disappeared when he had his landing net 

 about it. 



The Doctor said a man who would stoop 

 to a combination of fish and ghost story 

 had no more righteousness in his soul than 

 a weather prophet had; to which Griggs as- 

 sented heartily. 



" But I saw a ghost once," he added. He 

 was a quiet man, this Griggs, and prudent. 

 He invariably weighed our fish as he took 

 them from the hook. This care gave us in- 

 creased respect for all his statements, and 

 we had learned to rely on his word and his 

 judgment in everything pertaining to the 

 woods. We knew any ghost that might dis- 

 port itself within Griggs' vision, would be a 

 ghost in which there could be no guile. 



' Yes, I saw a ghost once," he continued. 

 " I saw him and called him, and I don't 

 gamble with his kind now. 'Twasn't any of 

 your shadowy, cloudy ghosts. Mine had 

 blood in its eye and it didn't play fair with 

 me. See that scar on my cheek? When the 

 Doctor asked me what made it I told him 

 it was a birthmark, and he said it was very 

 odd. That's all he knows about medicine. 

 No, sir, my ghost was bloodthirsty and it 

 went in for slaughter and carved me in a way 

 that wasn't funny." 



" Do you mean the ghost actually touched 

 you? " asked the Doctor. " Did it lose its 



presence of mind so far as to strike you? 

 And didn't it know better than to strike you 

 on the cheek? What's the use of being a 

 ghost if ghosts don't know more than that? 

 This morning I heard a man say he could 

 pack one hundred pounds of duffle on his 

 back. If a ghost came from the dead and 

 buncoed such a man, we should like to know 

 how it came about. Hilton, snore softly till 

 we hear his tale." 



" If I were as unsympathetic as you are 

 I'd take lessons in it. But I'll tell you the 

 story just to show you that our ghosts are 

 fighters up here. None of your spirit-rap- 

 pin', disappearin' ghosts in these parts. 

 When you want milk-and-water ghosts 

 you'd better get 'em at home. We don't 

 have 'em in the pine woods." 



" Now, Griggs," the Doctor expostulated. 

 " Our civilized ghost is, no doubt, much su- 

 perior in general efficiency to anything bred 

 here in the woods; but if you have some- 

 thing of striking merit in the spirit line — 

 something of which you have good reason 

 to be proud — please tell us of it." 



" We have somethin' that will knock out 

 anythin' of the kind that ever paraded a 

 graveyard or pranced through a haunted 

 house, and I know it because I've had a 

 seance with it. It didn't happen far from 

 here, either. 'Bout a year and a half ago I 

 went down to Petoskey one day to get some 

 stuff for a lumber camp. It was sure good 

 fishin' weather and they were catchin' fish all 

 'round the lakes. I started back on that lit- 

 tle sidewheel steamer you see pass here 

 every day, the Northern Belle, the one the 

 Doctor says must have been built for a child 

 to play with. Things went fine 'till we got 

 to the head of Indian river. Then a shaft 

 couplin' broke and we had to tie up for re- 

 pairs. We laid there about 8 hours before 

 the engineer got it patched up and was ready 

 to go ahead. The night was as black as your 

 hat then, and the 2 or 3 women on board 

 was wishin' they hadn't come. Old Law was 

 steerin' the boat and he was afraid he could- 

 n't keep her off the banks, so he asked me 

 to stand in the bow as a kind of lookout. 

 You know how crooked Indian river is and 

 how hard it is to round some of the bends 

 in the day-time; so you can guess what a 

 tough time we had of it that night. But we 

 did first rate, and when we got down to the 

 lower end, where the river widens, the moon 

 came out and I went back to the stern. 

 That was when I first saw the ghost. You 

 know that old bridge across the river near 

 its mouth. Well, the approaches to it have- 

 n't ever been completed, so it can't be used, 

 and nobody goes around there much. As 

 we steamed down to the bridge I saw some- 



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