Well, sir, we stayed there a fortnight, and most every night we could hear a man in moccasins walk up to the door and stop ; and if we looked, there was no one there, and he left no tracks in the snow. What was it, do you think, sir?”
‘Don’t know, John, I am sure,” I said, “unless it was some strange effect of the wind upon the trees.”
“Well, sir, I seed a curious thing once. I was hunting with a gentleman—from the old country, I think he was—my word, sir, a long time ago —mebbe thirty years or more. My soul and body, sir, what a sight of moose there was in the woods in those days! and the caribou run in great herds then ; all failing, now, sir, all failing. We were following caribou, right fresh tracks in the snow ; we were keeping a sharp look-out, expecting to view them every minute, when I looked up and saw a man standing between, us and where the caribou had gone. He was not more than two hundred yards off—I could see him quite plain. He had on a cloth cap and a green blanket coat, with a belt around the middle—not a leather belt like we use, sir, but a woolen one like what the Frenchmen use in Canada. There was a braid down the seams of his coat and round his cuffs. I could see the braid quite plain. He had no gun, nor axe, nor nothing in his hands, but just stood there with his hand on his hip, that way, right in the path, doing nothing.
