y to swear that you
shan't have a yarn from me for the whole spring. To accuse me of
yarning--me that--"

"That humbugged the whole Associated Press of the United States no
longer ago than the war with the southerns. I mind myself how you told
them at Shediac, that the Alabama was down among the fishermen in the
bay, like a hawk among a flock of pigeons. Faith, you had twenty of them
taken and burned before you stopped that time, and the telegraph
operator at Point de Chene was hopping all the evening between the boat
and the office, like a pea in a hot skillet," retorted La Salle,
laughing. "Ah, Lund! you mustn't plead innocent with us, who have been
humbugged by you too many times already. But come, captain, draw on your
imagination, and give us a regular stunner--one without a word of truth
in it."

"Well, gentlemen," answered Lund, deliberately, "I ain't got anything to
say to that young jackanapes, for nobody _that_ ever heard _him_ tell
stories will ever believe anything he says again. But I mean to have my
revenge somehow, and so I'll tell you a story that is as true as
gospel, and yet you'll hardly believe a word of it. We who live here on
this little island call it the story of

"THE PACKET LIGHT.

"About thirty years ago, my wife's father, old Mr. Bridges, lived in a
snug little log house down in the next field, towards the Point. He was
a young man then, and my wife here was a little girl, unable to do more
than to drive home the cows, or help mind the younger children. The
island is uncivilized enough now, sir, but in those days, besides the
old French military road to St. Peter's, and a government mail route to
St. Eleanor's, there was nothing but bridle-paths and rough trails
through the woods. Men came to market with horses in straw harnesses,
dragging carts with block-wheels sawn from the butt of a big pine; and
often when twenty or thirty of them were drinking into old Katty
Frazer's, the beasts would get hungry, and eat each other loose.

"It was next to an impossibility to get any money in exchange for
produce or labor, and everything was paid for in orders on the different
dealers for so many shillings' or pounds' worth of goods. In winter a
whale-boat on runners carried the mail between the Wood Islands and
Pictou, and in summer a small schooner, called the Packet, sailed with
the mail, and what few passengers presented themselves, between the
capital and the same port.

"It was in the las