“The last time I see it I noticed that it didn’t leave any tracks,” declared the narrator. “It walked right along on the light snow, and didn’t leave any tracks. Funny I didn’t notice that before, but I didn’t.”
“You sartinly ain’t what the dictionary would set down as a hawk-eyed critter,” remarked Tommy, maliciously. “It must have been kind of discouragin’, ha’ntin’ you.”
“It was a ha’nt,” insisted the man, with the same doggedness. “I got off’n my team right then and there, and got a bill of my time and left, and the man that took my place got sluiced by the snub-line bustin’, and about three thousand feet of spruce mellered the eternal daylights out of him. Say what you’re a mind to—I saw a thing that walked on light snow and didn’t make tracks, and I left, and that feller got sluiced—everybody in these woods knows that a feller got killed on Telos two winters ago.”
“Oh, there’s ha’nts,” agreed Tommy, earnestly. “Mebbe you saw one; only you got at your story kind of back-ended.”
The old teamster had been watching incredulity settle on the face of Dwight Wade, and this heresy in one to whom his affections had attached touched his sensitiveness.
“You’re probably thinkin’ what most of the city folks say out loud to us, Mr. Wade,” he went on, humbly. “They say there ain’t any such things as ha’nts in the woods. It would be easy to say there ain’t any bull moose up here because they ain’t also seen walkin’ down a city street and lookin’ into store windows. But I’d like to see one of those city folks try to sleep in the camp that’s built over old Jumper Joe’s grave north of Sourdnaheunk.”
There was a general mumble of indorsement. It became evident to Wade that the crew of the Enchanted were pretty stanch adherents of the supernatural.
“Hitchbiddy” Wagg cleared his throat and sang, for the sake of verification:
“He rattled underneath, and he rattled overhead;
Never in my life was I ever scared so!
And I did not dast to lay down in that bed
Where they laid out old Joe.”
“They can’t use that place for anything but a depot-camp now,” stated Tommy; “and it’s a wonder to me that they can even get pressed hay to stay there overnight.”