n the
evening hour by a blazing camp fire. There is no sweeter odour than
that of the damp forest mingled with the smell of burning wood. Beyond
the narrow circle of light a black wall rises, and behind the wall
lies the wilderness with its unfathomed mysteries. Out in the darkness
wild creatures move, silent, stealthy and unseen, behind a veil that
human eyes cannot penetrate. But we know they are there going about
the strange business of their life, and our imagination is awakened
and our sensibilities quickened.

The camp fire is a shrine of comradeship and friendship. Here it was
that the primordial ancestors of every living man and woman and child
gathered at night with their families, in those far-off dark ages
before history was written. The fire was their home. Here they found
rest and comfort and protection from the savage wild beasts that
roamed the forests. It was a place of veneration. The primitive
instinct, perchance inherited from those far-off ancestors of ours,
slumbering in our souls, is sometimes awakened, and then we are called
to the woods and the wild places that God made beautiful for us, and
at night we gather around our camp fire as our ancient ancestors
gathered around theirs, and we love it just as they loved it.

And so it was with the little camp fire on Flat Point and with Doctor
Joe and the boys. With darkness the uncanny light of the Aurora
Borealis flashed up in the north, its long, weird fingers of changing
colours moving restlessly across the heavens. The forest and the
wide, dark waters of Eskimo Bay sank behind a black wall.

There was absolute silence, save for the ripple of waves upon the
shore, each busy with his own thoughts, until presently Jamie asked:

"Did you ever see a ghost, Doctor?"

"A ghost? No, lad, and I fancy no one else ever saw one except in
imagination. What made you think of ghosts?"

"'Tis so--still--and dark out there," said Jamie, pointing toward the
darkness beyond the fire-glow. "And--I were thinkin' I heard
something."

"But there _is_ ghosts, sir, plenty of un," broke in Andy. "Pop's seen
ghosts and so has Zeke Hodge and Uncle Billy and plenty of folks. They
says the ghost of Long John, the old Injun that used to be at the Post
and was drowned, goes paddlin' and paddlin' about in a canoe o'
nights."

"Yes," said David, "I'm thinkin' I saw Long John's ghost myself one
evenin'. I weren't certain of un, but it must have been he."

"Nonsense!" Doct