y 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 owl,"
said he after a moment; "let us help the legend along by believing
it was the voice of the lost maiden."

"By the way," continued he, "do you remember the pretty creature we
saw seven years ago in the shanty on the West Branch, who was really
helping her mother cook for the hands, a slip of a girl twelve or
thirteen years old, with eyes as beautiful and bewitching as the
waters that flowed by her cabin? I was wrapped in admiration till
she spoke; then how the spell was broken! Such a voice! It was like
the sound of pots and pans when you expected to hear a lute."

The next day we bade farewell to the Rondout, and set out to cross
the mountain to the east branch of the Neversink.

"We shall find tame waters compared with these, I fear,--a shriveled
stream brawling along over loose stones, with few pools or deep
places."

Our course was along the trail of the bark-men who had pursued the
doomed hemlock to the last tree at the head of the valley. As we
passed along, a red steer stepped out of the bushes into the road
ahead of us, where the sunshine fell full upon him, and, with a
half-scared, beautiful look, begged alms of salt. We passed the
Haunted Shanty; but both it and the legend about it looked very tame
at ten o'clock in the morning. After the road had faded out, we took
to the bed of the stream to avoid the gauntlet of t