Captain Stewardson did not care to hear more; as soon as he could consistently excuse himself from his commanding officer, he did so, and wandered off among the pines, inwardly moaning.
In the early part of 1864, as the result of wounds, he was given an indefinite sick leave, but instead of going home, he resolved to visit Asterie’s grave.
The railroad was completed to Renovo, and the ties were down, ready for the rails, almost to Erie. A mail carrier on horseback travelled from Renovo to the backwoods settlements of Sinnemahoning and Driftwood, and hiring an extra horse, the now Major Stewardson arranged to accompany him. They had not ridden far through the snowy road when the mail man, Wallis Gakle, began telling about the Haunted House, Billy Cloyd’s old place that they would pass. “Nobody’s lived there,” he said, “since Oscar Garis moved out in the summer of ’61, after burying that pretty wife of his. They say he worked her to death, making her do all the cooking for all the lumber and mill crews, and was always after her to do more; he literally hounded the poor little child to death.”
Then he went on to tell how towards nightfall people were afraid to go past the deserted house for the awful screaming and yelling, like a woman in torment, that came from the upper rooms. Travellers never went on that side of the creek, unless in parties of four or five together, preferring to follow the right-of-way of the railroad across the creek, but even there they could hear the shrieks and moaning. Some were even hinting that Garis, who had gone to live with his late father-in-law on the Clarion, had in a fit of temper murdered his wife. At the time it was said that she had died of lung trouble.
All this was interesting to the young soldier, and he next inquired where the poor girl was buried.
“She’s lying on the hillside, overlooking the meeting of the First Fork and the Driftwood Branch, a beautiful spot, but it’s cold and bleak under the pines when the country is covered with snow.”
Just beyond the present town of Westport, Gakle and Stewardson fell in with two hunters tramping along on snowshoes with their dogs, headed for the panther country. They were the veteran Nimrod Jake Hamersley and a young hunter named Art Vallon.
“Glad to meet you, gentlemen,” said old Jake, half joking; “we wanted a little bolstering up before passing the haunted house.” “said Gakle, “I am never afraid, but my horse rears like one of the deil’s own buckies when he hears those dreadful screams. I always try to get by before dark, for they say the racket is a lot worse after sundown.”
As the party wended its way along the narrow trail by the river’s edge, all manner of hunting and ghost stories were recounted. All were in an eerie frame of mind, as with the rays of the setting sun shining in their faces, they neared the deserted Castlecloyd. The deep woods screened the clearings and gardens, but long before they came in view a melancholy wailing, like a woman tortured by fiends, echoed through the aisles of the primeval forest.
“I guess we’ll have to face it,” said the mail carrier, "but four man sized men, and a like number of varmint hounds ought to be able to ‘rassle’ any spook."