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In about a quarter of an hour the canoes were within a short distance of the landing-place, but no shout or sign of recognition came from the Indians who paddled them. There was an Indian in the bow and stern of each canoe, and a woman in the middle of one of them.

“Well, boys, what cheer?” said Jack, using a well-known backwood’s salutation, as the men landed.

The Indians silently took the proffered hand of the trader and shook it, replying in a low voice, “Wachee,” as the nearest point they could attain to the pronunciation of “What cheer?”

There was something so unusually solemn in the air and manner of the savages, that Jack glanced at the canoe in which the woman sat. There he saw what explained the mystery. In the bottom lay an object wrapped up in pieces of old cloth and birchbark, which, from its form, was evidently a human body. A few words with the Indians soon drew from them the information that this was one of their wives who had been ailing for a long time, and at length had died. They were Roman Catholic converts, and had come to bury the body in the graveyard of the fort which had been “consecrated” by a priest.

To whatever pitch of excitement Jack and his man had risen at the unexpected appearance of the Indians, their spirits fell to an immeasurably profounder depth than before when their errand was made known.

Everything connected with this burial was sad and repulsive, yet Jack and his man felt constrained, out of mere sympathy, to witness it all.

The Indians were shabby and squalid in the extreme, and, being destitute of the means of making a coffin, had rolled the corpse up in such wretched materials as they happened to possess. One consequence of this was, that it was quite supple. On being lifted out of the canoe, the joints bent, and a sort of noise was emitted from the mouth, which was exceedingly horrible. Had the dead face been visible, the effect would not have been so powerful, but its being covered tended to set the imagination free to conceive things still more dreadful.

The grave was soon dug in the sand inside the graveyard, which was not more than a hundred yards on one side of the fort. Here, without ceremony of any kind, the poor form was laid and covered over. While being lowered into the grave, the same doubling-up of the frame and the same noise were observed. After all was over, the Indians returned to their canoe and paddled away, silently, as they had come; not before Jack, however, had gone to the store for a large piece of tobacco, which he threw to them as they were pushing off.

During the remainder of that day, Jack Robinson and his man went about their vocations with hearts heavy as lead. But it was not till night that this depression of spirits culminated. For the first time in his life Jack Robinson became superstitiously nervous. As for Teddy O’Donel, he had seldom been entirely free from this condition during any night of his existence; but he was much worse than usual on the present occasion!

After sunset, Jack had his tea alone in the hall, while O’Donel took his–also, of course, alone–in the kitchen. Tea over, Jack sat down and wrote part of a journal which he was in the habit of posting up irregularly. Then he went into the kitchen to give Teddy his orders for the following day, and stayed longer than usual. Thereafter, he read parts of one or two books which he had brought with him from the civilised world. But, do what he would, the image of the dead woman lying so near him invariably came between him and the page, and obtruded itself on his mind obstinately. Once he was so exasperated while reading, that he jumped violently off his chair, exclaiming, “This is childish nonsense!” In doing so he tilted the chair over, so that it balanced for an instant on its hind legs, and then fell with an awful crash, which caused him to leap at least three feet forward, clench his fists, and wheel round with a look of fury that would certainly have put to flight any real ghost in creation.