ring echoes creeping among the
tree-tops, which, swaying to the night winds, filled the air with
noises, like half-formed whispers in the ear. Then the shrill cry of
the dingle-ambushed panther would ring out through the black stillness,
like the shriek of a terrified woman.

At one time, hardly had these sounds of evil omen died away, when, on a
sudden, there started up before them a tall shape, with long arms
outstretched, and all of a ghastly whiteness. The black giant stopped
short, fixedly staring before him--all in an instant weak as a
limber-jack, the whites of his eyes showing through the dark like
half-moons. The thing, there dimly seen in the dusk of the overhanging
trees, was, as superstitious fancy pictured it to the eyes of Burlman
Reynolds, the ghost of a white hunter who had been murdered and scalped
in that lonely spot by the barbarous Indians, and now, in his cold, cold
winding-sheet, was lingering around his bones, till some kind soul
should come along that way and give the precious relics Christian
burial.

Now, had Burlman Reynolds taken the second thought, he might have known
that, even had a white man been murdered there, and left on top of the
ground, his ghost would hardly be so unreasonable as to choose an hour
so unseasonable for making such an appeal to the living in behalf of the
bones; seeing it would be impossible to find the bones in the darkness,
covered up as they must be by leaves and grass, as bones usually are
under the circumstances--perhaps scattered far and wide by the wolves,
as bones are apt to be, if left exposed to ravenous animals of the kind.
All this, not to mention the slender likelihood that any one should be
coming along that way with a spade and pick-ax, at that time of night,
and so far from the settlements. Further, had Burlman Reynolds taken the
third thought, he might have known that even had the ghost of a slain
hunter been encountered then and there, he should be found taking his
nightly airing in a buckskin hunting-shirt, rather than in a
winding-sheet; woven fabrics of all kinds being still very scarce and
dear in the Paradise, Irish linen especially. Though the saying was
often in his mouth, Burlman Reynolds did sometimes fail to bear in mind
that "dare's reason in all things." But soon bethinking him of his usual
shift for reaessurance on such occasions--his touch-stone, so to
speak--Burl turned to note what impression this grizzly shade of the
night was maki