“Surely you don’t believe there are spirits of deer returned to earth, do you, Mr. M’Graw?” asked Agnes, smiling.
M’Graw grinned. “Ain’t no tellin’. Mebbe there is. I’m mighty careful what I say about ghosts,” he rejoined. “But this here ghost deer, now—”
He had finished breakfast and was filling his pipe. “Lemme tell you about it,” he said. “I will say, though, ’twasn’t no spirit, for I eat some of the venison from that ghost deer.
“But for two seasons the critter had had the whole of Ebettsville by the ears. The hunters couldn’t get a shot, and some folks said ’twas a sure-enough ghost.
“But if ’twas a ghost, it was the fust one that ever left footprints in the snow. That’s sure,” chuckled M’Graw. “I went over there with Old Betsey once; but never got a shot at it. Jest the same I seen the footprints, and I knowed what it was.”
“What was it?”
“Looked like a ghost flying past in the twilight. It was an albino—white deer. I told ’em so. And fin’ly Tom Lawrence, as I said, shot it. Why they hadn’t got it before, I guess, was because them that shot at it shivered so for fear ’twas a ghost they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn!” and M’Graw broke into a loud laugh.
“I did not know that deer were ever white,” Agnes said.
“One o’ the wonders of nature,” Ike assured her. “And not frequent seen. But that critter was one—and a big one. Weighed upwards of two hundred pound. Tom give me a haunch, and when it was seasoned some, ’twasn’t much tougher than shoe-leather. Me, I kill me a doe when I want tender meat. My teeth is gettin’ kind of wore down,” chuckled the old man.
“Was it really all white?” asked Neale.