s 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



JJcIjY 28, 1887, 



THE GHOST OF STANDING STONE-I. 



MARCUS DARRONLAY stretched out lazily on the 

 grass, looting dreamily down on the river and the 

 hills and pasture lands that sloped gently to the opposite 

 shore. The vivid green of the foliage sparkled like emer- 

 ald, and darkened as the afternoon sun alternately glared 

 down upon it and passing on left dark shadows hehind. 

 A sober, sedate breeze rustled among the leaves and quiv 

 ered for a passing second on the smooth surf ace of the 

 river. 



Marc was thinking intently, and even the perfect beauty 

 of the May afternoon was wholly lost to him. From time 

 to time he glanced at a letter that lay beside him. The 

 year before a sportsman from New York had spent a 

 week at the village, and under Marc's guidance had 

 landed many a nice bass and salmon, and had filled his 

 basket over and over again with trout from the deep 

 brown pools that lay far back in the mountains. "When 

 the train whirled him away swiftly toward the busy 

 metropolis he promised Marc that he would not forget 

 him. And he kept his word, for now here comes a letter 

 inclosing an advertisement clipped from a New York 

 paper. A Broadway firm wanted a large black bass to 

 put on exhibition in their window. No ordinary fish 

 would do. It must be a monster, a veritable king among 

 bass, with a mouth so large that you could thrust both 

 fists clear in. For such a fish they would give ten dol- 

 lars. "Now," wrote Marc's friend, "here is a chance for 

 you. There are some big fish in the deep water around 

 your neighborhood, so try to get one uninjured and let 

 me know and I will send you a tank, and tell you how to 

 ship it alive to New York. There is plenty of time yet, 

 so hunt out a good place." 



Marc had gone up on the hill to Ms favorite resting 

 place to think it over. Money was scarce with him, 

 and the prospect of earning ten dollars was very daz- 

 zling. It was just what he needed, too, for then he could 

 try canvas and paint, and build one of those dainty little 

 canoes that every summer passed down the river and 

 went on into the unknown and mysterious world beyond. 

 He had examined them carefully and knew just how to 

 make them if he only had the material. But how to get 

 the bass — that Avas the question. The more he thought 

 over it the harder it seemed, and finally his wearied 

 brain, and the drowsy hum of the bees on the locust 

 blossoms overpowered him and he fell asleep. He woke 

 with a start as the afternoon train dashed into the little 

 station just below him. Two or three persons got off, 

 and one solitary passenger climbed up with a consequen- 

 tial air on the platform of the last car. Heads were 

 thrust out of the window for a moment and then drawn 

 wearily back. Two men in silk smoking caps came out 

 on the platform and looked eagerly out on the river. One 

 pointed out on the water and then jerked both arms up 

 with an expressive gesture. "He's tellin' the other fel- 

 low about the fishing," thought Marc. "All aboard!" 

 cried the conductor. Dong! dong! went the bell as the 

 train moved slowly ahead and then with increased speed 

 rumbled over the rails and in a moment disappeared 

 round the curve. Marc waited until the shrill whistle 

 echoed among the mountains as the train approached 

 Wysauking, and then made his way slowly down the 

 hill. He walked along the street until he came to the 

 post office. The usual crowd of village idlers occupied 

 the steps and empty boxes that stood in front. They 

 imagined, perhaps, that they were waiting for mail, 

 though within the memory of man not one of them had 

 ever received a letter, with one exception perhaps, old 

 Bill Jenkins, the veriest loafer in the village, who several 

 years before, while sitting on his accustomed soap box, 

 had actually been handed a long yellow envelope. Strange 

 to say he disappeared that day, and the next week stepped 

 off the train one afternoon radiant in a new suit, and a 

 pocketful of loose cash. A relative up in Elmira had 

 died and left hini a little money. So every afternoon 

 from that day each and every individual that gathered 

 to see the mail come in, had a vague hope that some day 

 he would be handed a long yellow envelope from the ex- 

 ecutors of some distant unknown relative. 



Marc sat down on the comer of the long porch. Every- 

 body was listening too intently to pay any attention to 

 him. "Yes," Dick Fagan was saying, "it's a blamed out- 

 rage. These ere swells wot can't go fishing till summer 

 make these laws so us poor devils let the fish alone for 

 them. Ketch me a doin' that. I'll fish all I want to an' 

 I'd like to see the Warden a stoppin' me." 



"Yes," broke in Mose Peters, "an' Dick's senterments 

 are just mine too. We've been a ketchin fish fur years, 

 an' now this ere Warden comes along an' says, 'Stop! 

 You cant ketch no more fish till the first of June.' How 

 iie he going to prevent it, I'd like to know." 



"Well, see here," interrupted a quiet looking man, 

 •'jest stop and think fur a minit. In a few years, ef 

 everybody fishes all the time, why there won't be any 

 more fish at all. They'll all be caught. That ere is the 

 reason them laws is made." 



"That's so," said three or four voices. 



"Oh, shut up! Don't give us any of your chaff, Par- 

 sons," said Fagan, "we all know — 



"Hussss-h!" said some one, "here comes the Warden 

 now." 



A tall muscular man with a very determined face came 

 up the street and with a nod passed through the crowd, 

 and entered the post office. Fagan and Peters slunk off 

 round the corner, and in a moment the rest, each im- 

 pelled by a sort of guilty feeling, had scattered and gone 

 nome. Marc remained alone. Through the open door 

 he heard the Warden talking to the Postmaster. "Yes, 

 Mr. Watson," he was saying, "I know these laws are not 

 understood at all. Some day the people will come to 

 their sense, and see how valuable they are. I know they 

 bear me an ill feeling, but I am only an agent of the law 

 bound to enforce my duties; and let me tell you I'm go- 

 ing to do it too, if I have to drag these fellows off in irons 

 to jail!" 



"Yes! yes!" assented the Postmaster gravely, though 

 only a few moments before he had indorsed with an ap- 

 proving nod the rather questionable opinions expresssd 

 out on the porch. Then the Warden came out and with 

 a sharp glance at Marc, turned up the street. 



Marc sauntered off again. He had hardly formed any 

 opinion on the fish laws, and at any other time would not 

 have troubled his mind about it. But now it conflicted 

 with his plans, and he must give up catching any bass for 

 a week yet, when it would become legal. For although 

 it would be easy enough to take fish home undiscovered, 



yet to capture a large basB, and keep it alive and finally 

 ship it to New York on the train, was simply impossible. 

 Within the last few weeks the Warden had been very 

 vigilant tearing out fish dams, and keeping a strict eye 

 on the river. "Well, at any rate," thought Marc, 'Til 

 have a whole week yet to hunt out a good place." As he 

 reached the station the evening train came thundering 

 in, and in the excitement and turmoil he forgot all about 

 the bass. 



The next day he wandered far up the river keeping 

 along the steep mountuin side, where he could look down 

 into the deep holos below. But the water was a little too 

 cloudy, and he only saw one fish — a ten-inch bass that 

 rose up on top and with a twinkle in his eye, gulped 

 down a white-headed bumble bee that had preferred 

 swimming to flying. Then a sort of mistrustful feeling 

 seemed to seize him, for he rapidly opened and shut his 

 jaws, and then with a frantic splash and a Bplurge of his 

 tail shot down into the shadows. 



Marc was thirsty so he went on a little further till he 

 reached a spring that bubbled spasmodically from under 

 a big stone and flowing a few feet ran over a rocky ledge 

 sheer down into the river fifteen feet below-. He leaned 

 down and drank his fill of the ice cold water. As he rose 

 he heard a familiar sound aesfle him. Creeping to the 

 edge on hands and knees he peered eagerly over. Just 

 below with his boat tied to a projection on the rocky wall 

 was Dick Fagan intently fishing. A string of bass* hung 

 in the water from the side of the boat and the fish tugged 

 together at the restraining line. Suddenly Dick got a 

 bite, and with a quick j'erk hooked and soon landed an- 

 other fish. As he put it on the stringer he picked up a 

 small brown jug from the end seat, and pulling out the 

 cork stopper put it to his lips and threw his head back. 

 Then Mark heard a gurgling. Finally he put it down re- 

 luctantly, and wiping his lips resumed his seat in the 

 front of the boat. He had his back turned to Marc and 

 the jug was just at the foot of the ledge standing on the 

 end seat. Marc pulled a fishing line from his pocket, and 

 making a running noose, let it down. Twice he missed, 

 but the" third time it slipped over the neck and caught 

 firmly. Gently and with a trembling hand he lifted the 

 jug up until it reached the top, and then grasping it 

 eagerly he hurried back from the edge and hid it behind 

 a tree near the spring, and noiselessly crept out of sight. 

 All the way home he laughed to himself at the thought 

 of Fagan's consternation when he found the jug missing. 

 In the evening he went down to the post office and 

 found the victim of his joke surrounded by an attentive 

 audience. 



"Why!" he was saying, "That ere were the strangest 

 thing as ever happened to me. I took a drink an' set it 

 down morn half full on the seat. Then I started in a- 

 fishing, an' when I pulled one out, an' got up to put it on 

 the stringer, the jug were gone. So I run the boat down 

 a piece an' clum up on the rocks, an' arter looking round 

 a while I found the jug a-settin' up behind a tree. It jest 

 beats me how in tarnation it ever got up thar." 

 , "Only half full, were it, Dick?" asked old Mose sugges- 

 tively. This struck a responsive chord and everybody 

 smiled. "Waal now, Dick," he continued slowly, "are 

 you sure as you wasn't dreamin' 1 ?" 



"Dreamin'," said Dick, savagely, "Dreamin'! Do you 

 suppose I could dream that ere jug up into the bushes? 

 Here, Marc Darron, what ere you a-snickerin' at?" and 

 Dick relapsed into a sullen silendfe broken only by moody 

 puffs at his corncob pipe. 



That romance was a little too much for even such 

 hardened cases as his cronies, and Dick's persistent story 

 was set down to an hallucination produced by the first 

 half of the contents of the jug. The next time Dick and 

 the jug went fishing, the jug was manacled by a stout 

 cord and fastened securely to the seat. He was ignorant 

 enough to be superstitious, and took extra precautions 

 against the jug's being spirited away again. 



One morning when the sun was still below the horizon, 

 and river and forest had a ghostly unnatural look in the 

 faint gray light, he slipped down by a short cut through 

 the fields to the river, plunged into the fringe of 

 bushes that skirted the shore, and soon emerged dragging 

 a nondescript looking craft behind him. It appeared to 

 be half -boat, half -canoe, but it rested gracefully on the 

 water, and when Marc stepping in sat in the stern and 

 plied his paddles vigorously, it shot out with a steady, 

 rapid movement toward the opposite shore. It appeared 

 to slide over the water leaving not a ripple behind, and 

 so noiselessly that the bass leaping and plunging in the 

 cool of the morning, actually disregarded it and splashed 

 vigorously on all sides. Mark headed obliquely across 

 and soon neared shore far below his starting point. Just 

 skirting the upper end of a course of rapids that roared 

 and foamed below him, he ran into a calm eddy and pad- 

 dled up the mouth of a small stream coming down 

 through a mountain valley, and by reason of the back 

 water navigable for some distance up stream. But he 

 only went a few yards and running in under a mass of 

 overhanging bushes, leaped out and leaving the boat 

 hidden there; then he started rapidly down the river, 

 crossing the level space of meadow land at the opening 

 of the valley, and entering a rugged winding path along 

 the steep mountain side and in places running sheer down 

 to the river. Walking rapidly for some time he suddenly 

 stopped and plunging into the rocks and tangled moun- 

 tain growth made his way down to the river and in a few 

 minutes stood by the water at the foot of Standing Stone. 

 The great rock towered far above him, gaunt and gray in 

 the early light; and then while he stood looking up the 

 first herald sunbeam announcing the day struck the 

 broad side and peaked top, and scattering the shadows, 

 illumined with its effulgence the scraggy irregular dent 

 that tradition says was inflicted by a cannon ball, fired by 

 Sullivan when he marched up the river after the mas- 

 sacre of Wyoming. On clear calm days when the sun 

 reaches a certain point, a smooth black object is visible to 

 the eye far down in the shuddering depths that lie out 

 from the Stone, and the country lads row over the spot, 

 and peering down with a sort of mysterious fascination, 

 tell each other that there lies the identical cannon ball. 

 The spirit of the past hovers round this old monument. 

 Surrounded by river and mountain looking proudly across 

 to the opposite hills and forests, it stands to-day as it has 

 stood for centuries. The Revolutionary shadows that 

 cluster round and with various historical epochs mark it 

 for their own, are but an atom to that antiquity which 

 has seen the sun rise and set upon its gray old head. Marc 

 pulled himself up with the branches of a large pine tree 

 that stood back on the slope of the moimtain. Climbing I 



twenty feet he found himself just opposite the top of the 

 Stone and only a few feet distant from it* Reaching in 

 among the thick branches he pulled out a stout plank 

 about two yards long, and placing one end in a niche cut 

 in the tree, he dropped the other end into a little hollow 

 on top of the Stone, with a couple of quick rapid steps 

 crossed the chasm and stood on top of Standing Stone, 

 This was a secret device of Marc's. He had invented this 

 plan of reaching the Stone for the purpose of excelling 

 his companions in their efforts to carve their names on 

 the highest part of the rock. His name Was above all; but 

 unfortunately it was upside down, and every time he 

 saw it Marc laughed at his stupidity in spending a whole 

 morning with mallet and chisel carving his name where 

 no one Could read it but himself; Many a fish; too-, he 

 had hauled up on the Stone, reaching down with a 1'ofig 

 line^ and watching the bass and snnfish seize, the bait and 

 dash off exultantly to a sudden Untimely end. 



This morning the, Water was a little cloudy and not a 

 fish was in sight. A turtle came up for air, but at sight 

 of Marc bobbed down like a flash, and scurried away to 

 his hole. An ugly brown snake passed down the river 

 with his head erect and his long lithe body undulating in 

 graceful curves behind him. Marc went back over the 

 shaky bridge and down the tree. Among the stones on 

 shore he found three small toads, and stowing them in 

 his pocket climbed up again. He dropped the first one 

 within a yard of the Stone; before it had gone a foot a- 

 plump bass gobbled it up and looked expectantly Mr 

 more. The second one weut down eaBier still-. Mare 

 threw the last one five or six yards out; The same 

 greedy fish darted straight for it, but suddenly turned 

 and slunk back into the shad'dws as a monster bass rose 

 un near the surface and stood motionless under the strug- 

 gling toad-, gently waving its broad fins. Marc trembled 

 With excitement. Never had he dreamed that such fish 

 existed in the river. And then the fan-like tail moved 

 quickly, the gleaming striped side turned for an instant 

 to the warm sunlight, the spacious jaws opened with a 

 snap and like a spring they closed on the shivering little 

 toad. With a disappointed air the monster swam round 

 several times and then sullenly glided off into the depths, 

 waving his piratical black flag of a tail with a savage 

 merciless sweep. Marc waited in vain for him to appear 

 again. The toads were all gone too, so he reluctantly 

 climbed down and started up the river. If he could get 

 that fish the ten dollars would be his. And in a few days 

 more the law would allow him to catch it if he could. 

 But he had a very feasible plan in his head, and all the 

 way up the river and across in the noonday glare he re- 

 volved it in his mind. That evening at sunset he was 

 down at the Stone again and six more toads were Con- 

 signed to an early grave. The first three were gobbled 

 up by a couple of frisky yoling bass, but the rest fell to 

 the lot of the monster himself who regarded it quite as a 

 matter of course and snapped them up without so much 

 as winking and then opened his jaws expectantly for 

 more. The following day Marc fed him three times, and 

 had now begun to regard him as his sure and certain 

 prey. What would be easier than to slip down there in 

 his boat early in the nioming, anchor above the rock and 

 drop his line baited with a lively toad a few yards below? 

 There would be a splash and a jerk, but whaHf he should 

 swallow the hook? That would end all hope of the ten 

 dollars. But Marc was naturally hoxieful and dismissed 

 such gloomy forebodings from his mind. 



That afternoon he had a scare. He was coming along 

 the mountain path whistling merrily, and conjuring up 

 in his mind pictures of the dainty canoe he hoped soon to 

 own. The sharp click of rowlocks fell on his ear, and 

 looking up, he saw a boat out on the river coming slowly 

 down stream. The sluggish cm-rent barely moved at this 

 point, and the occupants were fishing as they floated 

 down. Marc recognized them at once. It was Fagan 

 and Mose Peters. What if they should stop at Standing 

 Stone? Marc turned back, keeping even with the boat 

 which was still moving down yard by yard and seemed 

 to his anxious eyes as it drew near the Stone to be fairly 

 flying through the water. He was entirely concealed 

 from view, and running ahead reached the" Stone and 

 waited. He was determined that no one should catch 

 that bass. The boat came slowly on and gradually 

 worked in shore untd it was within "a few yards of Marc, 

 who, crouching down in the bushes, cou.d hear every 

 word. 



"Here!" said Fagan, "pull in thar in the shade an' we'll 

 rest awhile. The sun is mighty hot to-day." Mose ran 

 the boat in shore close to the rock: and a large string of 

 bass dangled from the side. Fagan picked up the brown 

 jug which was fastened to the seat, and took a long 

 drink. 



"Here Mose," he said, passing it on; "take a swig; it'll 

 do yer good." 



Mose, nothing loth, applied his hps, and never stopped 

 till the last drop had gone down his throat. Fagan 

 stepped shaking out of the boat and threw himself on the 

 ground. "Mose, you fasten that ere jug agen. If you 

 don't we'll wake up an' find it a-settin' up thar on yonder 

 stone. I don' trust nothin' nowadays." 



Mose intended to tie the cord, but a drunken stupor 

 came over him, and he sank down in a heap in the bot- 

 tom of the boat. 



In a moment both were asleep, and creeping down 

 cautiously, Mose removed all then bait. "That fish is 

 safe for to-day," he thought. Then his eyes fell on the 

 jug. "I guess I'll make Dick's prediction come true," he 

 said softly. All the way up to the village he laughed to 

 himself. The consternation of Dick and his worthy friend 

 can be better imagined than described when they woke 

 up with the setting sun and saw the jug looking benignly 

 down upon them from its lofty perch. 



"This 'ere place is ha'nted for sure," said Mose, trem- 

 bling in every limb. "Cum on an' git out o' here." 



They hurried home, and that night related the stoiy 

 with such effect that a deputation of villagers went down 

 the next morning to see the wonder. But to the indig- 

 nation of all the jug was not on top of the stone, but far 

 down in the water at the base. 



Dick incoherently tried to explain, but they turned on 

 him scornfully. ' 'Shut up, you blamed fool. You was 

 lookin' down the water all the time an' thought you Avas 

 lookin' up in the air." Dick's stories had gone too far, and 

 after that he suffered a sort of social ostracism for a 

 while. 



The next day the loungers at the postoffice had an ex- 

 citing topic to discuss. Marc strolled down at dusk and 

 found them all trying to talk at once. He touched a 



