. There she stands, a-gazing at you with a far-off
look in her eyes, as though you were on the other side of the Kentucky
river, and not a living thing anear you. Bertha!" Here Ben elevated his
voice a little. Bertha turned her eyes toward the speaker, though
apparently with as little perception of his actual presence as though he
were lying at the bottom of the river he had named. "There, you see how
she does, and that's the way she's doing all the time. When she wakes up
she won't know any more for a minute where she is than you did, before I
told you. She's either in love, or fixing to be a ghost."

What young Ben Logan meant by this concluding remark were hard to
imagine; unless, indeed, he had in his mind the idea of a little angel,
when he said "ghost." After receiving each answer, Sprigg would pause
for a few moments to consider what he had heard and assure himself of
its meaning before proceeding further. Now, after a somewhat longer
pause than before, he put the startling question:

"Ben, did you ever see Nick of the Woods?" To which he received the
equally startling answer:

"Well, if I didn't see him to-day, it wasn't because I didn't stare
with all the eyes I had. I never saw the woods behave so in all my life
before. There a tree, just one tree, would fall to waving its limbs and
shaking its leaves, making the liveliest flutter, and all the rest of
the trees as still as mice when the cat's about. And there went smoke
a-rolling up in puffs as big as feather beds, and not a sign of fire to
show for it, that I could see. And there went fire a-shooting up in
flames higher than my head, and not the sign of a stick of wood to show
for it, that I could see. And here went shadows, skipping and dodging
about, and not the sign of a living thing to do the skipping and
dodging, that I could see. And there were voices all about me--some on
this side, others on that; some close at my ear, and others far
away--all talking the strangest gibberish, and not the sign of a living
thing to do the talking, that I could see."

"Weren't you terribly frightened, Ben?"

"Well, at first I did feel queer--just a little queer, up and down the
back and about the roots of my hair--but just as I had cocked my gun,
and was looking about me for something to let fly at--plump! It was all
gone as quick as the blowing out of a candle. Then I felt a little
better, and after a short while a great deal better--real good and easy.
I don't kno