r three lying in the pastures higher up were used for
watering the stock and were kept clean and free from plant growth. But
the lower pool, abandoned like the cabins, had been allowed to overflow
its banks until it was completely surrounded with rushes and lily pads.
A rank growth of willow trees hung over the water and shut out all but
the merest glint of sunlight.

Above this pool the cabins stretched in a double row occupying the base
of the declivity on which the "big house" stood. There were as many as a
dozen, I should think, built of logs and unpainted shack, consisting for
the most part of a single large room, though a few had a loft above and
a rough lean-to in the rear. A walk bordered by laurels stretched down
the center between the two rows, and as the trees had not been clipped
for a good many years, the shade was somewhat sombre. Add to this the
fact that one or two of the roofs had fallen in, that the hinges were
missing from several doors, that there was not a whole pane of glass in
all the dozen cabins, and it will readily be seen that the place gave
rise to no very cheerful fancies. I wondered that the Colonel did not
have the houses pulled down; they were not a souvenir of past times
which I myself should have cared to preserve.

The damp earth where the shade was thickest, plainly showed the marks of
foot-prints--some made by bare feet, some by shoes--but I could not
follow them for more than a yard or so, and I could not be certain they
were not our own traces of the night before. I poked into every one of
the cabins, but found nothing suspicious about their appearance. I did
not, to be sure, ascend to any of the half dozen lofts, as there were no
stairs and no suggestion of a ladder anywhere about. The open traps
however which led to them were so thickly festooned with spider webs and
dirt, that it did not seem possible that anyone had passed through for a
dozen years. Finding no sign of habitation, either human or spiritual, I
finally turned back to the house with a philosophic shrug and the
reflection that Cat-Eye Mose's nocturnal vagaries were no affair of
mine.

During the next few days we in the front part of the house heard only
faint echoes of the excitement, though I believe that the ha'nt, both
past and present, was the chief topic of conversation among the negroes,
not only at Four-Pools but among the neighboring plantations as well. I
spent my time those first few days in getting acqu