“No; I guess he thought it must have been a bear or some other animal. He went back into his cabin and barred up the door, and after a while the boy saw the light go out. It had been shining through the chinks, you know.”
“What else?”
“Nothin’, except that the boy waited a while and slipped down from the tree and got away from there as soon as he could. He had an awful time getting home through the wood, afraid of meeting a bear, and he didn’t have his gun, of course, had lost his canoe and everything in it. By good luck he was on the mainland, and walked home. They used to tramp around so much and so far that I imagine that wasn’t much to him. We can hike a good distance ourselves, you know.”
“The Indians really used to come to Merrymeeting, you know,” said Dot.
“O, yes, and maybe this old smuggler or pirate traded with ’em. But they say that he buried a lot of treasure up there and that his ghost was seen hunting around and whispering in a hollow voice, ‘Four from the pine tree, Ten from the ledge, Six grey stones at the water’s edge!’”
“Whoever made that up,” laughed one of the boys, “got up a good one, for there are about a million pine trees more or less, and all the stones along the bay are grey ones, I guess, to say nothing of all the ledges of rock and stone along there!”
“Four from the pine tree,
Ten from the ledge,
Six grey stones
At the water’s edge.”