ion. The men sprang up, quaking.

"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.

"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward. "Don't you know my voice?
Am I a Windego?"

"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the shape of Mr. Tom, after
eatin' him," cried Big Baptiste.

Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the other men scouted the
idea, though it was quite in keeping with their information concerning
Windegos' habits.

Then Tom came in and gave a full and particular account of the
Windego's pursuit, capture, and present predicament.

"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.

"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed with spruce tips underneath,
and covered with dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back ends of
them. You shall see them to-morrow. I found them down yonder where he
had left them after crossing the warm spring. He had five bits of
sharp round wood going down in front of them. He must have stood on
them one after the other, and lifted the back one every time with the
pole he carried. I've got that, too. The blood was from a deer he had
run down and killed in the snow. He carried the blood in his tin pail,
and sprinkled it behind him. He must have run out our line long ago
with a compass, so he knew where it would go. But come, let us go and
see if it's Red Dick Humphreys."

Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He had become quite philosophic
while waiting for his captor to come back. When unbound he grinned
pleasantly, and remarked:--

"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're a smart young feller, Mr.
Dunscombe. There ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a' done
that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran will make your fortun' for this,
and I don't begrudge it. You're a man--that's so. If ever I hear any
feller saying to the contrayry he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."

And he told them the particulars of his practical joke in making a
Windego track round Madore's shanty.

"Hermidas Dubois?--oh, he's all right," said Red Dick. "He's at home
at St. Agathe. Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego track at
Madore's; but, by criminy! the look of it scared him so he wouldn't
cross it himself. It was a holy terror!"

THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.

I.

When Mini was a fortnight old his mother wrapped her head and
shoulders in her ragged shawl, snatched him from the family litter of
straw, and, with a volley of cautionary objurgations to his ten
brothers and sisters, strode angrily forth int