barred the heavy door and stepped out.

"Ah! is it possible! Can the sun be settin' that way? as if there had
been nothin' happenin'."

Wrecks strewed the open ground about the cabin, poultry coops were
washed away, the cow shed was a heap of ruins, into which the
trembling observer dared not peer. That Snowfoot should be dead was a
calamity but second only to the loss of master and nursling.

"Ah! my beast, my beast. The best in all this northern Maine. That the
master bought and brought in the big canoe for an Easter gift to his
so faithful Angelique. And yet the sun sets as red and calm as if all
was the same as ever."

It was, indeed, a scene of grandeur. The storm, in passing northward,
had left scattered banks of clouds, now colored most brilliantly by
the setting sun and widely reflected on the once more placid lake. But
neither the beauty, nor the sweet, rain-washed air, appealed to the
distracted islander who faced the west and shook her hand in impotent
rage toward it.

"Shine, will you? With the harm all done and nothin' left but me, old
Angelique! Pouf! I turn my back on you!"

Then she ran shoreward with all speed, dreading what she might find
yet eager to know the worst, if there it might be learned. With her
apron over her head she saw only what lay straight before her and so
passed the point of rocks without observing her master lying behind
it. But a few steps further she paused, arrested by a sight which
turned her numb with superstitious terror. What was that coming over
the water? A ghost! a spirit!

Did spirits paddle canoes and sing as this one was singing?

"The boatman's song is borne along far over the water so blue,
And loud and clear, the voice we hear of the boatman so honest
and true;
He's rowing, rowing, rowing along,
He's rowing, rowing, rowing along--
He's rowing and singing his song."

Ghosts should sing hymns, not jolly little ballads like this, in which
one could catch the very rhythm and dip of oar or paddle. Still, it
was as well to wait and see if this were flesh or apparition before
pronouncing judgment.

It was certainly a canoe, snowy white and most familiar--so familiar
that the watcher began to lose her first terror. A girl knelt in it,
Indian fashion, gracefully and evenly dipping her paddle to the melody
of her lips. Her bare head was thrown back and her fair hair floated
loose. Her face w