290 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Feb. 22, 1908. 
enough trout for supper and breakfast. I cleaned 
them and fried two or three in butter, then fed the 
dog and lay back on the boughs and smoked. 
Like most of his breed, Tom Crib was a silent 
dog under ordinary circumstances. When oc¬ 
casion warranted it he could ‘‘raise Cain 1 ’; but 
he very seldom barked in the woods. To pre¬ 
vent his sneaking off and engaging in a porcu¬ 
pine hunt, I tethered him to the canoe with the 
wildcat snares. They were sufficiently long to 
enable him to get close to the fire, and he 
basked beside it with his pads turned toward 
the blaze and his head on my foot. I was tired 
and soon fell asleep. About ten o’clock I woke 
and found the fire low. I replenished it and 
sat beside it, half awake and half asleep, for 
some time, then lay down again and soon dozed 
off. 
I may have slept for half an hour when I 
awoke again. The fire still burned brightly, 
but the dog was on his feet gazing into the 
darkness with his tail rigid, one ear standing 
up and his blunt muzzle working. The wind 
had abated and it was no longer raining. I im¬ 
mediately assumed that a porcupine was in the 
near vicinity and that Tom Crib was anxious 
to try conclusions with him. I therefore cuffed 
his ears and ordered him to “down charge.” He 
obeyed me under protest. I threw a few more 
sticks on the fire, turned over and went to sleep 
again. Later I woke with a start. The dog 
was growling and straining with all his might 
at the wire which held him. The hair along his 
spine was bristling, his legs were bowed out 
in his endeavor to break away and his eyes 
were glaring at some object which was invisible 
to me in the darkness. 
It occurred to me that a bear might be 
prowling round the pool, looking for trout or 
suckers. My gun lay beside me unloaded. I 
opened it, slipped a charge of duck shot into 
the right barrel and a ball cartridge into the left. 
The Canadian black bear is about as dangerous 
as a sheep, but his insatiable curiosity and 
greediness will sometimes bring him close to a 
camp-fire, particularly if any savory smelling 
food has been recently cooked. I waited 
anxiously, expecting every moment to see the 
two twinkling little balls of fire which represent 
the fire-light reflected in an animal’s eyes. The 
dog continued to strain at his leash and had not 
the canoe been staked to prevent a change of 
wind overturning it, I believe he would have 
moved it bodily. I cuffed the dog again. He 
absolutely refused to lie down. Had he been 
a different dog, I should have slipped him and 
let him try conclusions with the bear, or what¬ 
ever it might be. As it was, I knew that if 
I did so he would launch himself at the throat 
of the biggest bear that ever walked, and my 
wife would be minus her cherished pet in about 
two seconds. 
Minute after minute passed, and still no sign 
of nocturnal visitor, the dog still strained to 
get loose and little bunches of froth gathered 
at the corners of his mouth. I took a few 
pieces of birchbark, tied them together, held 
them in the fire until they were in a fierce 
blaze and threw them as far as I could in the 
direction the dog was looking. At the same 
instant I jumped out of the camp with my gun 
and a couple of spare cartridges in my hand. 
There Was no sign df a bear or any other 
animal. The blazing bark lighted the surround¬ 
ing ground up for a considerable distance. Th<* 
nearest bushes were fifty yards away. I turned 
to go back to camp and administer a good 
whipping to 'Tom Crib for his “cussedness,” 
when the most appalling scream I ever heard 
came from the direction of the pool. I have 
heard the scream of a horse in agony; the yells 
of two wildcats fighting. They are neither of 
them to be compared to that awful sound which 
came from the pool. It died away and in a 
moment a yell of laughter like the cry of a mad 
hyena followed. 
I am not naturally superstitious, nor do I 
consider that I am a coward, but I lost no 
time in getting back to the fire and the dog. 
I have been told by people who profess to un¬ 
derstand more or less about occult phenomena 
that the brute creation is more susceptible to 
the influence of spirits, revenants, and the super¬ 
natural generally, than human beings are. Tom 
Crib was evidently an exception to the rule. At 
the sound of the scream and the peal of hor¬ 
rible laughter, his anger became frenzy. His 
efforts to break loose were so frantic that I 
caught him by the collar and held on to him. 
Not for a thousand dollars would I have parted 
with that dog just then. 
Then a wailing voice came from the pool, 
and a human voice at that. “Perdue, perdue, 
perdue. Mon ame est perdue.” Another yelj 
of laughter, and a blazing ball of fire rose from 
the water and commenced to travel over the sur¬ 
face of the pool. It was not a tiny flickering 
flame, like the will-o’-the-whisps I had seen 
the previous night. It was an intense white 
light, and it seemed to be high above the sur¬ 
face of the water. 
In the midst of my terror—and I freely admit 
that I have never been so terrified before or 
since—I remembered that the pool had a gravel 
bottom, and consequently was incapable of 
generating marsh hydrogen, and also that the 
wind was blowing hard enough to extinguish 
anything but a lantern or a torch. I suppose 
that light traveled backward and forward for 
five minutes. It moved slowly; sometimes it 
vanished for a second or two. Once it dipped 
until it almost touched the water. Instantly 
it rose ten or fifteen feet in the air. Finally it 
went out, or seemed to go out, leaving the pool 
in darkness. Mechanically I turned my pockets 
out and counted my cartridges. I had five 
rounds of ball beside the one in the gun, and 
six rounds of duck shot. Somehow or other 
I could not take my eyes off the pool. Idreaded 
to see anything, and yet I wished to see. 
Another of those fiendish yells of laughter, 
and right over the center of the water hung a 
pillar of fire which seemed to me to be as tall 
as a man. It moved, as the fireball had moved, 
but unlike it, it was of a yellowish tinge. For 
perhaps a minute it moved backward and for¬ 
ward, then it sank slowly into the water and 
went out. The wailing cry of “Perdue, perdue” 
rose again, and hardly realizing what I was do¬ 
ing, I raised my gun and fired the ball cartridge 
in the left barrel in the direction of the sound. 
I could hear the smack of the bullet against a 
rock, it was followed by another piercing 
scream, and all was still. 
I saw no more lights that night, but I heard 
the awful voice twice. It was further away, and 
seemed to come from the opposite bank. I piled 
wood on the fire and looked at my watch. It 
was a quarter to twelve. Six hours to daylight. 
The shot seemed to have had a sedative influ¬ 
ence on the dog’s nerves. He ceased to growl 
and strain at his leash. Finally he lay down be¬ 
fore the fire aqd went to sleep. I sat before the 
fire with the loaded gun resting on my knees. 
Between three and four in the morning the 
clouds cleared away, and the stars came out. I 
had some water in my kettle. I boiled it and made 
tea. Then I cooked a couple of trout and had 
breakfast. I was determined to leave the camp¬ 
ing ground as soon as it was daylight. I sup¬ 
pose the tea must have settled my nerves, for 
I had no sooner eaten my breakfast than I com¬ 
menced to feel very sleepy. There was no fear 
of anything coming near the camp without an 
alarm from Tom Crib, so I made a blazing fire, 
lay down again with the gun beside me, and in 
a few minutes was asleep once more. 
When I woke it was broad daylight, and the 
sun was rising over the fir trees which fringed 
the pond. In my half-dazed condition I thought 
the whole occurrence might have been an ex¬ 
ceptionally vivid nightmare, but the empty 
cartridge on the boughs beside me and the 
trace of burnt powder in the left barrel pre¬ 
cluded the idea at once. I examined the dry 
grass all round to see if I could find any trace 
of my nocturnal visitor. There.were plenty of 
fairly fresh moose tracks, and one or two porcu¬ 
pine roads, but no sign of any human foot other 
than my own. I carried the canoe down to the 
pool, loaded her. and prepared to journey on to 
the camp at St. Croix Lake. The water was per¬ 
fectly calm and very clear. I could see the 
white granite sand on the bottom. More unlikely 
material for the creation of an ignis fatuus could 
hardly exist. I paddled round the pool twice 
without obtaining any clue to the mystery. 
Then I turned the canoe down stream. I had 
gone about a hundred yards when I saw an 
object floating on the water. It had brought 
up against some weeds. I also noticed that 
there was a peculiar thin greenish scum on 
the water. I picked the object up. It was a 
small fragment of charred cotton waste .such as 
machinists use to clean engines with. I smelt 
it, and it had the unmistakable odor of kero¬ 
sene. A little further on I saw one or two 
similar pieces. 
Whoever lighted that oil-soaked waste must 
have come down to the water by some route, 
or else paddled up the stream. If they came 
by land they would surely leave tracks. I in¬ 
tended to land as soon as I rounded the first 
point, circle the pond, and find those tracks. 
Then when I found the track-makers I proposed 
to give them a piece of my mind. I ran the 
canoe ashore and made my way through the 
fir scrub, with my gun in one'hand and a withe 
attached to Tom Crib’s collar in the other. 
The moss was very deep and soft, it took my 
tracks remarkably well, and I saw that I should 
have very little difficulty in finding any one 
else’s. 
I worked up almost parallel with the spot at 
which I judged I had seen the light, keeping 
a hundred yards or so from the water. I never 
saw such huge granite boulders in my life. 
Many of them were as large as a small house. 
The fir bushes grew between them and on top 
of them. Flere and there a stunted white pine 
struggled for existence. Then I came on a 
tiny thread of water, running among the rocks. 
