ined me
In a capuchin of gray,

"'Bending upon the snow-shoes
With a long and limber stride;
And I hailed the dusky stranger,
As we traveled side by side.

"'But no token of communion
Gave he by word or look,
And the fear-chill fell upon me
At the crossing of the brook.

"'For I saw by the sickly moonlight,
As I followed, bending low,
That the walking of the stranger
Left no foot-marks on the snow.

"'Then the fear-chill gathered o'er me,
Like a shroud around me cast,
As I sank upon the snow-drift
Where the shadow hunter passed.

"'And the otter-trappers found me,
Before the break of day,
With my dark hair blanched and whitened
As the snow in which I lay.

"'But they spoke not as they raised me;
For they knew that in the night
I had seen the shadow hunter
And had withered in his sight.

"'Sancta Maria speed us!
The sun is fallen low:
Before us lies the valley
Of the Walker of the Snow!'"

"Ah!" exclaimed my companion. "Let us pile on more of those dry
birch-logs; I feel both the 'fear-chill' and the 'cold-chill'
creeping over me. How far is it to the valley of the Neversink?"

"About three or four hours' march, the man said."

"I hope we have no haunted valleys to cross?"

"None," said I, "but we pass an old log cabin about which there hangs a
ghostly superstition. At a certain hour in the night, during the time
the bark is loose on the hemlock, a female form is said to steal from
it and grope its way into the wilderness. The tradition runs that her
lover, who was a bark-peeler and wielded the spud, was killed by his
rival, who felled a tree upon him while they were at work. The girl,
who helped her mother cook for the 'hands,' was crazed by the shock,
and that night stole forth into the woods and was never seen or heard
of more. There are old hunters who aver that her cry may still be heard
at night at the head of the valley whenever a tree falls in the
stillness of the forest."

"Well, I heard a tree fall not ten minutes ago," said Aaron; "a
distant, rushing sound with a subdued crash at the end of it, and the
only answering cry I heard was the shrill voice of the screech owl off
yonder against the mountain. But maybe it was not an o