Transcriber’s Note:

The illustrations have been re-positioned slightly to avoid falling within a paragraph.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s [note] at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

INDEX

OUTPOSTS OF THE ALLEGHENIES. (Photograph by W. H. Rau.)
Frontispiece

Allegheny Episodes

Folk Lore and Legends Collected in

Northern and Western Pennsylvania

By HENRY W. SHOEMAKER

Volume XI Pennsylvania Folk Lore Series

“The country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation. * * * Those people called themselves Alligewi. * * * The Allegheny River and Mountains have been named after them. * * * The Lenni-Lenape still call the river Alligewi Sipu, the river of the Alligewi, but it is generally known by its Iroquois name–Ohe-Yu–which the French had literally translated into La Belle Riviere, The Beautiful River, though a branch of it retains the ancient name Allegheny.”

–John Heckewelder.

ALTOONA, PENNSYLVANIA

Published by the Altoona Tribune Company

1922

Copyright: All Rights Reserved.

Foreword

The author tells me that I was his discoverer, and that without a discoverer we cannot do anything. Very true; one American author had to write till he was forty-eight, and then be discovered in Japan. Henry W. Shoemaker was discovered nearer home, and by a humbler scholar.

In my last foreword I emphasized the value of folk-lore. Its significance grows upon me with age. I have now come to regard it as a kind of appendix to Scripture. Outside of mere magic, an abuse of correspondences, as Swedenborg calls it, there is in folk-lore a digest of the spiritual insight of the plain people. It also contains actual facts boiled to rags. For instance, in 1919 the dying Horace Traubel saw in vision his life-long idol, Walt Whitman, and the apparition was also seen by Colonel Cosgrave, who felt a shock when it touched him.

The flimsy modern paper whereon the scientific account of this is printed will soon perish, and then there will be nothing left but loose literary references and memories to witness that it happened. Any skeptic can challenge these, and the apparition will become folk-lore. As it is in its scientific setting in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research for 1921, it is a side light on the Transfiguration. For if Whitman appeared to Traubel in 1919, and Swedenborg appeared to Andrew Jackson Davis in 1844, why should not the great predecessors of Christ appear also to him?

Such is the value of folk-lore, and for this reason the Armenian Church did well to attach an appendix of apocrypha to the Holy Gospel. In such a document as the uncanonical Gospel of “Peter” (this was not one of the Armenian selections, but it ought to have been, in spite of the fact that the Mother Church of Syria had suppressed it) the life of Christ is seen in a dissolving view, blending with the folk-lore of the time; and let us hope that some day this valuable piece of ancient thought will be printed with the New Testament instead of some of the unimportant matter that too often accompanies it.

Albert J. Edmunds.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania,

Philadelphia, March 1, 1921.

Introduction

It is a good thing to make resolves, but a better thing, once having made them, to keep them. On two previous occasions the compiler of the present volume has stated his resolve in prefaces to issue no[no] more books of the kind, but has gone ahead and prepared more. Probably the motive that brought into existence the first volume can be urged in extenuation for the eleventh, namely, the desire to preserve the folk-lore of the Pennsylvania Mountains.

The contents of the present volume, like its predecessors, were gathered orally from old people and others, and written down as closely as possible to the verbal accounts. In order to escape ill feeling, as in the case with the earlier volumes, some names of persons and places, and dates have been changed. This has been done with the greatest reluctance, and only where absolutely necessary. The characters are real persons, and most of them appear under their rightful names. Many of the legends or incidents run counter to the accepted course of history, but tradition is preserved for what it is worth, and the reader can draw his own conclusions. While some of these tales end unhappily, the proportion is not greater than in life as we know it, and the general ascendency of right over wrong shines through the gloomiest passages. Life could not exist, or the world go on, unless the majority of events ended fortuitously; it is that happy preponderance which makes “hope spring eternal,” and is so often rewarded by a realization of the heart’s desire.

The various phases of the supernatural in the ensuing pages depicts probably a more normal condition of our relationship with the unseen world than the crude and clumsy mediumship found in the big cities, and may present a rational explanation of life “behind the dark curtain.”

There is certainly a spiritual life, and a purely spiritual God, and all the events of the soul are regulated by divine laws, which have only too frequently been confused with the physical life so subject to chance and reversion back to chaos.

The origins of Pennsylvania folk-lore seem to the writer like a happy blending of Indian and European elements which would have gradually, had backwoods conditions continued, developed into a definitely Pennsylvanian mythology. The fact that the writer had so many more legends in form of notes, which otherwise would have been mislaid and come to nothing, prompted him to break his resolve and prepare the present volume. And, for good or ill, he has many more, dealing with other parts of the State. What shall be their fate? Are they worthy of perpetuation as folk-lore? Apart from the general idea of preserving legendary matter for future generations, there is the added reason that the heroic lines of some of the characters appealed to him, and, to save them from the oblivion of the “forgotten millions,” their careers have been herein recorded.

Probably one-half of the stories were told to the compiler by one lady–Mrs. W. J. Phillips, of Clinton County--who spent some of her girlhood days, many years ago, on the Indian Reservations in Pennsylvania and southwestern New York.

Professor J. S. Illick, Chief of the Bureau of Research of the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, is due thanks for securing many of the illustrations. Four of the chapters–Nos. IX, XV, XXI, XXII–are reprinted from the compiler’s historical brochure, “Penn’s Grandest Cavern,” and the first chapter, “Tulliallan,” was published in the “Sunbury Daily”; otherwise none of the chapters of this book have hitherto appeared in print.

Persons interested in more intimate details concerning the origins and characters of the various tales will be cheerfully accommodated “for private circulation only.” Like James Macpherson of “Ossian,” it can be said “the sources of information are open to all.”

The compiler hopes that through this book a more general interest in the Pennsylvania folk-lore can be created; its predecessors have missed achieving this, but there is always that hope springing afresh to “Godspeed” the newest volume. No pretense at style of literary workmanship is claimed, and the stories should be read, not as romances or short stories, but as a by-product of history–the folk-lore, the heart of the Pennsylvania mountain people. With this constantly borne in mind, a better understanding and appreciation of the meanings of the book may be arrived at.[at.]

The kindly reception accorded to the previous volumes, and also to “North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy” by the press and by a small circle of interested readers, if equalled by the present volume will satisfy the compiler, if his ambitions for a wider field of usefulness are not to be realized.

To those of press and public who have read and commented on the earlier volumes go the compiler’s gratitude, and to them he commends this book, the tales of which have had their origins mostly along the main chain of the Allegheny Mountains and on the western watershed. Sincere thanks are due to Miss Mary E. Morrow, whose intelligence and patience in transcribing the manuscripts of this and the majority of the earlier volumes of the series has had much to do with whatever recognition they may have achieved, and a pleasant memory to the author, as well.

Henry W. Shoemaker.

Department of Forestry,

State Capitol, Harrisburg,

February 23, 1922.

P. S.–Thanks are also due to Mrs. E. Horace Quinn, late of Bucknell University, for her kindness in revising the proofs.

9-5-22.

I
Tulliallan

“Why, yes, you may accompany your Uncle Thomas and myself to select the plate which we plan to present to the battleship of the line, ‘The Admiral Penn,’ which the First Lord, His Grace, Duke of Bedford, has graciously named in honor of your distinguished grandsire,” said Richard Penn, pompously, answering a query addressed to him by his young son, John.

The youth, who was about eighteen years of age and small and slight, seemed delighted, and waited impatiently with his father for Uncle Thomas’ arrival. Soon a liveried footman announced the arrival of Thomas Penn, and the brothers, after embracing, started from the imposing mansion in New Street, Spring Gardens (near the Admiralty Arch), accompanied by the younger scion and a retinue of secretaries, retainers and footmen.

It so happened that the leading silversmith in the city, James Cox, was of the Quaker faith, to which William Penn, the famous founder of Pennsylvania, and father of Richard and Thomas, belonged, and was particularly pleased to be the recipient of this costly and important order. It was an occasion of such importance to him that his wife, sons and daughter had come to his place of business to witness the transaction and, perhaps, meet the aristocratic customers.

As they entered the establishment, the tradesman himself opened the door, bowing low as the two portly gentlemen, with their plum-colored coats, snuff boxes and walking sticks, entered arm in arm, followed by the diminutive John, in a long, red coat, while the minions of various degrees waited outside, clustered about the gilded chairs.

It must be understood that these sons of William Penn were not members of the Society of Friends, but had assumed the faith of their grandfather, the Admiral, and founder of the family fortunes, and young John was nominally a member of the same faith.

The portly and self-important gentlemen were soon absorbed in studying the various designs of silver services, while the restless and half-interested gaze of young John wandered about the salesroom. It was not long in falling on the slender, demure form of Maria Cox, the silversmith’s only daughter. Clad in her Quaker garb and bonnet, she was certainly a picture of loveliness, almost seventeen years old, with deep blue eyes, dark brows and lashes, fair complexion, with features exaggerately clearcut, made John Penn’s senses reel in a delirium of enthusiasm.

Ordinarily he would have become impatient at the delay in selecting the silver service, for the older gentlemen were slow of decision and he was a spoiled child, but this time he was lost in admiration and he cared not if they remained in the shop for the balance of the day. John Penn, himself, for a small lad was not unprepossessing; his hair was golden, his eyes expressive and blue, his complexion like a Dresden china doll’s, his form erect and very slim, yet few girls had fancied him, for he was selfish and not inclined to talk.

Seeing that he was not assisting his elders in selecting the silverware, Mrs. Cox, the wife, and a woman of some tact and breeding, introduced conversation with the young man, eventually drawing her daughter into it, and it was a case of love quickly on both sides.

When, after four hours of selecting and changing and selecting again, the Penns finally accepted a design and placed their order, John had arranged that he was to dine with the Cox family and see the young beauty frequently. All went well until the day appointed for the visit to the home of the silversmith. John Penn presented himself before his father attired in his best red velvet coat with gold facings, white satin knee breeches, pumps with diamond buckles, his face much powdered, and sporting a pearl inlaid sword. The elder Penn demanded to know the cause of the youth’s magnificence, for ordinarily his Quaker blood showed itself in a distaste for fancy apparel.

“To dine with Mr. and Mrs. James Cox and their charming daughter, whom I much admire,” was the calm rejoinder.

“What, what,” fairly shouted the father, almost having an apoplectic attack on the spot; “dining with common tradespeople! You must be in a frenzy, son; we’ll have you in Bedlam.”

“I don’t see why you talk that way, father,” said John, retaining his composure. “Are we so very different? It was only a few generations back when the Penns were plain rural yeomen, and Madame van der Schoulen, or Grandmother Penn, your own mother, was she not the daughter of a Dutch tradesman?”

“Don’t speak that way, lad; the servants may hear, and lose respect,” said the father.

The lad had touched a sore subject, and he preferred to let him keep his engagement rather than to have an expose on the subject of ancestry.

The dinner and visit were followed by others, but at home John’s romance did not run smoothly, and he quickly realized that his father and Uncle Thomas, whose heir he was to be, would never consent to his marriage with the daughter of a silversmith. Consequently, a trip to Gretna Green was executed, and John Penn, aged nineteen, and Maria Cox, seventeen, were duly made man and wife.

When Richard Penn and his brother Thomas were apprised of what he had done they locked him in his room, and after night got him to the waterfront and on a ship bound for the French coast. He was carried to Paris and there carefully watched, but meanwhile supplied with money, all that he could spend. Temporarily he forgot all about Maria Cox, plunging into the gaieties of the French Capital, gambling and betting on horse races, the “sport of kings” having been only recently introduced in France, until he was deeply in debt. He became very ill, and was taken to Geneva to recuperate. There he was followed by representatives of his creditors, who threatened to have him jailed for debt–a familiar topic in family talk to him, for his grandfather, William Penn, despite his ownership of Pennsylvania, had been arrested for debt many times and was out on bail on a charge of non-payment of loans made from his steward at the time of his death.

John wrote frantically to his father in London, who turned a deaf ear to the prodigal; not so Uncle Thomas. He replied that he would save the boy from jail and pay his debts, provided he would divorce his wife and go to Pennsylvania for an indefinite period. John was ready to promise anything; a representative of the Penn’s financial interests settled all the claims in and out of Paris, and John Penn was free.

While waiting at Lille for a ship to take him from Rotterdam to Philadelphia, the young man was advised to come to London for a day to say good-bye to his relatives. The packet was expected in the Thames on a certain day, but got into a terrific storm and was tossed about the North Sea and the Channel for a week, and no one was at the dock to meet the dilapidated youth on his arrival at Fleet Street.

As he passed up the streets in Cheapside, to his surprise he ran into the fair figure of his bride, the deserted Maria Cox-Penn. He was again very much in love, and she ready to forgive. They spent the balance of the day together, enjoying a fish ordinary at a noted restaurant in Bird-in-Hand Court. Over the meal it was arranged that Maria should follow her husband to America; meanwhile, he would provide a home for her over there under an assumed name, until he became of age, when he would defy his family to again tear them asunder.

None of John Penn’s family had the slightest suspicion of anything out of the usual when he presented himself in their midst, and he returned quietly to Lille, where he remained until the ship was announced as ready to take him to America. He arrived in New York during a terrible tornado, in November, 1752. At Philadelphia he evinced little interest in anything except to take a trip into the interior. As he had plenty of money, he could accomplish most anything he wanted, and was not watched. On his way to the Susquehanna country he traveled with an armed bodyguard, as there were even then renegade Indians and road agents abroad. A number of less distinguished travelers and their servants were, for safety’s sake, allowed to accompany the party. Among them was a man of fifty-five, named Peter Allen, to whom young John took a violent fancy.

It was not unusual, for Peter Allen was what the Indians recognized as a gentleman, although he was only a cadet, or what we would call nowadays a “poor relation” of the proud Allen family, the head of which was William Allen, Chief Justice of the Province, a man about Peter Allen’s age, and for whom Northampton or Allensville, now Allentown, was named.

Peter Allen had built a stone house or trading post, which he called “Tulliallan” after one of the ancestral homes of the Allen family in Scotland, on the very outpost of civilization, twenty miles west of Harris’ Ferry, where all manner of traders, hunters, missionaries, explorers and sometimes Indians congregated, where balls were held with Indian princesses as guests of honor, and the description of this place fired John Penn’s fancy.

The idea had flashed through his mind that Maria could harbor there unknown until he became of age, and some day, despite the silly family opposition, she would become the Governor’s Lady. John Penn went to Peter Allen’s, and not only found a refuge for his bride, but liked the frontier life so well that it was as if he had been born in the wilderness. Mountains and forests appealed to him, and his latent democracy found full vent among the diversified types who peopled the wilderness.

Peter Allen had three young daughters, Barbara, Nancy and Jessie, whom he wished schooled, and John Penn arranged that Maria should teach them and, perhaps, have a select school for other children of the better sort along the Susquehanna. Peter Allen was secretly peeved at his family for not recognizing him more, and lent himself to anything that, while not dishonorable, would bend the proud spirit of the Proprietaries and their favorites, one of whom was the aforementioned “Cousin Judge” William Allen.

John Penn returned to Philadelphia, from where he sent a special messenger, a sort of valet, to London, who met and safely escorted Maria to America. She landed at Province Island on the Delaware, remaining in retirement there for a month, until John could slip away and escort her personally to Peter Allen’s.

The girl was bright, well-educated and sensible, and found the new life to her liking, and her young husband loving and considerate.

It was in the spring of 1754 when they reached the stone house at the foot of the Fourth or Peter’s Mountain, and during the ensuing year she taught the young Allen girls and three other well-bred children, and was visited frequently by her husband. She assumed the name of Mary Warren, her mother’s maiden name, which proved her undoing. All went well until representatives of the Penns in London learned that Maria Cox-Penn was missing, and they traced her on shipboard through the name “Mary Warren,” eventually locating her as the young school-mistress at “Tulliallan.”

The next part of this story is a hard one to write, as one hates to make accusations against dead and gone worthies who helped to found our beloved Pennsylvania; but, at any rate, without going into whys and wherefores, “Mary Warren” mysteriously disappeared. Simultaneously went Joshua, the friendly Indian who lived at the running spring on the top of Peter’s Mountain, and Arvas, or “Silver Heels,” another Indian, whose cabin was on the slopes of Third (now called Short) Mountain, near Clark’s Creek.

VIRGIN WHITE PINES, WARREN COUNTY, 1912

It was in the early summer of 1755 when John Penn, accompanied only by one retainer, John Monkton, a white-bearded veteran of Preston, rode out of the gateway of the stockade of John Harris’ trading post, bound for Peter Allen’s. His heart was glad and his spirits elated for, moody lad that he was, he dearly loved his wife and her influence over him was good.

On the very top of the Second Mountain he drew rein, and in the clear stillness of the Sunday morning listened to a cheewink poised on the topmost twig of a chestnut sprout, and viewed the scenes below him. In an ample clearing at the foot of Fourth Mountain he could see Peter Allen’s spacious stone mansion, where his love was probably at that minute instructing the little class in the beauties of revealed religion. They would soon be united, and he was so wonderfully happy!

As the cool morning breeze swayed the twig on which the cheewink perched, it sang again and again, “Ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee!” in a high key, and with such an ecstasy of joy and youth that all the world seemed animated with its gladness, yet Penn’s thought as he rode on was, “I wonder where that bird will be next year; what will it have to undergo before it can feel the warmth and sunlight of another spring?”

He hurried his horse so that it stumbled many times going down the mountain, and splashed the water all over old Monkton in his anxiety to ford Clark’s Creek. He lathered his horse forcing him to trot up the steep contrefort which leads to “Tulliallan,” though he weighed hardly more than one hundred and twenty pounds. He drew rein before the door; no one rushed out to greet him, even the dogs were still. He made his escort dismount and pound the heavy brass knocker, fashioned in the form of an Indian’s head. After some delay, Peter Allen himself appeared, looking glum and deadly pale.

“What is wrong?” cried Penn who was naturally as intuitive as a woman, noting his altered demeanor.

“Can I tell you, sir, in the presence of your bodyguard?”

“Out, out with it, Allen,” shouted Penn, “I must know now.”

“Mary Warren has been gone a fortnight, we know not whither. She had taken the Berryhill children home after classes, and left them about five o’clock in the evening. She did not return, and we have searched everywhere. Strange to relate, George Smithgall, the young serving man whom you left here to look after your apartments, and who accompanied Mary from London is gone also; draw your own inferences.”

John Penn’s fair face was as red as his scarlet cloak. Despite Allen’s urging he would not dismount, but turned his horse’s head toward the river. He rode to Queenaskawakee, now called Clark’s Ferry, where there was a famous fording, and, accompanied by his guard, he made the crossing and posted for the Juniata country. Near Raystown Branch he caught up with the company of riflemen and scouts organized by “Black Jack,” the Wild Hunter of the Juniata, who was waiting for General Braddock’s arrival to enlist in the proposed attack on Fort Duquesne at Shannopin’s Town, now Pittsburg. Black Jack was no stranger to him, having often met him at social gatherings at Peter Allen’s, and the greeting between the two men was very friendly. John Penn occupied the same cabin as the Wild Hunter, and he told him his story.

“It is not news to me,” said Captain Jack. “I heard it before, from Smithgall. He went through here last week hunting for Mary.”

Despite this reassuring information, Penn refused to believe anything but that the lovely Quakeress had proved false and eloped with the German-American serving man. Word came in a few days that the vanguard of General Braddock’s army had reached the Loyalhanna, and were encamped there. Captain Jack, with John Penn riding at his side, and followed by his motley crew with their long rifles–Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Indians, half breeds, Negroes and Spaniards–approached the luxurious quarters of General Edward Braddock, late of the Coldstream Guards. The portly General, his breast blazing with decorations, wearing his red coat, was seated in a carved armchair in front of a log cabin erected for his especial use by his pioneers, who preceded him on the march. A Sergeant-Major conveyed the news of “The Wild Hunter’s” presence to the General’s Aide, who in turn carried it to the august presence.

“I cannot speak to such a fellow, let alone accept him as a brother officer,” said Braddock, irritably. “Besides, his methods of fighting are contrary to all discipline, and I want no Pennsylvania troops. Tell him that if he insists I will make him top-sergeant, and place my own officers over his company.”

Captain Jack was half angry, half amused, when the rebuff was handed to him via the sergeant major.

“My father was a Spanish gentleman from the Minisink, and my mother a woman of tolerably good Hessian blood. I see no reason for such rank exclusiveness.”

Quickly turning his horse’s head, the sturdy borderer ordered his troop to proceed eastward.

“Don’t act too rashly, Captain,” entreated Penn. “General Braddock is ignorant of this country and Indian methods of warfare. He may have orders not to enlist native troops, yet without your aid I fear for the success of his expedition. Please let me intercede with him; he will do it when he hears that I am your friend.”

“To the devil with him and his kind, the swinish snob,” growled Captain Jack, while his black eyes flashed a diabolical hatred; his Spanish temper was uncontrollable. That night, when Captain Jack and John Penn were seated at their camp fire at Laurel Run, a messenger, a Major, not a Sergeant Major, from General Braddock was announced.

Saluting, the officer asked to be allowed to speak with John Penn, Esquire. Penn received the officer without rising, and was cooly civil throughout the interview, which consisted principally of reading a letter from Braddock, expressing deep regret “that he had not known that the son of his dear friend, Richard Penn, had been with –-- Jack,” and offering Penn the captaincy of Black Jack’s company of scouts, “–-- Jack to be First Lieutenant.”

Naturally, Captain Jack was more enraged than ever, but he said: “Take it, John, I’ll withdraw and turn my men, who, you know, are the best shots in the Province, over to you. They would go through hell for you.”

“Never fear,” replied Penn, and, turning to the Major, he said: “Tell General Braddock, with my compliments, that I decline to accept a commission which he has no authority to tender. As for my companion, Captain Jack (laying emphasis on the Captain) the General had his decision earlier in the day. Goodnight, Major.”

Thus terminated the “conference” which might have changed the face of history. As the result of Braddock’s pride and folly, his defeat and death are a part of history, known by every Pennsylvanian.

John Penn was wretchedly unhappy, even though Captain Jack tried to console him, when he shrewdly inferred that “Mary” had been kidnapped by emissaries of his relatives, and had not eloped with a vile serving man. His heart was too lacerated to remain longer with the Wild Hunter, now that no active service was to be experienced; so, accompanied by Monkton, the veteran of Preston, he set out the next morning for the West Branch of the Susquehanna to the unexplored countries.

At Waterford Narrows they passed the body of a trader recently killed and scalped by Indians.

“May I draw one of his teeth, sir?” said the old soldier, “and you can carry it in your pocket, for the old people say ‘The only thing that can break the enchantment of love is the tooth of a dead man’.”

Penn shook his head and rode on. For a considerable time Penn and Old Monkton visited with Dagonando (Rock Pine), a noted Indian Chief in Brush Valley (Centre County), for the young man, like the founder of Pennsylvania, possessed the same irresistible charm over the redmen.

Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, speaking to General Thomas Mifflin, Dagonando stated that had it not been for his unhappy love affairs, John Penn would have been the equal of his grandfather as Governor, and prevented the Revolutionary War. But his spirit was crushed; even a mild love affair with Dagonando’s daughter ended with shocking disaster. Reaching Fort Augusta, Penn became very ill; a “nervous breakdown” his ailment would be diagnosed today. During his illness he was robbed of his diary. He reached Philadelphia in the fall, and almost immediately set sail for England. He remained abroad until 1763, when he returned as Governor of Pennsylvania. He arrived in Philadelphia on October 30, in the midst of the terrific earthquake of that year, and on November 5, George Roberts in a letter to Samuel Powell, in describing the new Chief Magistrate, says:

“His Honor, Penn, is a little gentleman, though he may govern equal to one seven feet high.”

Charles P. Keith has thus summed up Penn’s career from the time of his first arrival in Pennsylvania: “He was one of the Commissioners to the Congress at Albany in the summer of 1754, and made several journeys to the neighboring colonies. Nevertheless, his trouble made him again despondent; he began to shun company; he would have joined Braddock’s army had any Pennsylvania troops formed part of it, and perhaps have died on the field which that officer’s imprudence made so disastrous. Some two months after the defeat he returned to England.”

On June 6, 1766, a brilliant marriage occurred in Philadelphia. John Penn, Lieutenant Governor, aged thirty-seven years, married Anne, the daughter of William Allen, Chief Justice; a strange fate had united the relative of Peter Allen of “Tulliallan” to the husband of Maria Cox, pronounced legally dead after an absence of eleven years in parts unknown. Commenting on this alliance, Nevin Moyer, the gifted Historian, remarks: “The marriage was an unpleasant one, on his (Penn’s) account, for he was found very seldom at home.” It was during the wedding that a fierce electrical storm occurred, unroofing houses and shattering many old trees.

It was not long after this marriage when a feeling of restlessness impelled him to start another of his many trips to the interior. This time it was given out that he wished to visit Penn’s Valley, the “empire” discovered in the central part of the province by Captains Potter and Thompson, and named in his honor, and Penn’s Cave, the source of the Karoondinha, a beautiful, navigable stream, rechristened “John Penn’s Creek.” He managed to stop over night, as everyone of any consequence did, at “Tulliallan,” and slept in the room with the Scotch thistles carved on the woodwork, and saw Peter Allen for the first time in twelve years.

A foul crime had recently been committed in the neighborhood. Indian Joshua, who used to live at the running spring, had gone to Canada the year of Braddock’s defeat (the year of Mary’s disappearance, Penn always reckoned it) and had lately returned to his old abode. He had been shot, as a trail of blood from his cabin down the mountain had been followed clear to Clark’s Creek, where it was lost. In fact, pitiful wailing had been heard one night all the way across the valley, but it was supposed to be a traveling panther. Arvas, or Silver Heels, had also come back for a time, but, after Joshua’s disappearance, had gone away.

“Maybe he killed his friend,” whispered Allen, looking down guiltily, as he spoke what he knew to be untruthful words.

“It is all clear to me now, Allen,” said Penn. “I should have believed Captain Jack, when in ’55 he told me that my late wife was carried off to Canada by Indians; the kidnappers came back, and for fear that they would levy hush money on those who had caused my Mary to be stolen, murdered Joshua as a warning.”

Allen did not answer, but Penn said: “You have kept a public house so long that you have forgotten to be a gentleman, and I do not expect you to tell the truth.”

In 1840 seekers after nestlings of the vultures climbed to the top of the King’s Stool, the dizzy pinnacle of the Third Mountain. There they found the skeleton of an Indian. It was all that was left of Joshua, who had climbed there in his agony and died far above the scenes which he loved so dearly. The hunters put the bones in their hunting pouches and climbed down the “needle,” and buried them decently at the foot of the rocks.

The King’s Stool is named for a similar high point near Lough Foyle, Ireland, and there are also King’s Stools in Juniata and Perry Counties. The North of Ireland pioneers were glad to recognize scenes similar to the natural wonders of the Green Isle!

A great light had come to John Penn, but he accepted his fate philosophically, just as he had the abuse heaped upon him for his vacillating policy towards the Indians. He followed up his vigorous attempt to punish the Paxtang perpetrators of the massacres of the Conestoga Indians at Christmas time, 1763, by promulgating the infamous scalp bounty of July, 1764, which bounty, to again quote Professor Moyer, paid “$134 for an Indian’s scalp, and $150 for a live Indian, and $50 for an Indian female or child’s scalp.”

There are not enough Indians to make hunting for bounties in Pennsylvania a paying occupation today, so instead there is a bounty on Wildcats and foxes, wiping out desirable wild life to satisfy the politicians’ filthy greed.

John Penn returned to Philadelphia without visiting Penn’s Valley or Penn’s Cave or John Penn’s Creek. He had seen them previously in 1755 when they bore their original Indian names, and his heart was still sad. It was not long after returning that he again started on another expedition up the Susquehanna, traveling by canoe, just as his grandfather, William Penn, had done in his supposedly fabulous trip to the sources of the West Branch at Cherry Tree, in 1700. A stop was made at Fisher’s stone house, Fisher’s Ferry. A group of pioneers had heard of his coming and gave the little Governor a rousing ovation. He felt nearest to being happy when among the frontier people, who understood him, and his trials had, like Byron, made him “the friend of mountains”; he was still simple at heart. In the kitchen, seated by the inglenook, he heard someone’s incessant coughing in an inner room. He asked the landlord, old Peter Fisher, who was suffering so acutely.

“Why, sir,” replied Fisher, “it’s an Englishwoman dying.”

In those days people’s nationalities in Pennsylvania were more sharply defined, and any English-speaking person was always called an “Englishwoman” or an “Englishman,” as the case might be.

“Tell me about her,” said the Governor, with ill-concealed curiosity.

“It’s a strange story, it might give Your Worship offense,” faltered the old innkeeper. “They tell it, sir, though it’s doubtless a lie, that Your Excellency cared for this Englishwoman, and your enemies had her kidnapped by two Indians and taken to Canada. The Indians were paid for keeping her there until a few years ago, when their remittances suddenly stopped and they came home; one, it is said, was murdered soon after. Arvas, his companion, was accused of the crime, but he stopped here for a night, a few weeks afterwards, and swore to me that he was guiltless. The Englishwoman finally got away and walked all the way back from a place called Muskoka, but she caught cold and consumption on the way, and is on her death-bed now. I knew her in all her youth and beauty at Peter Allen’s, where she was always the belle of the balls there; she had been brought up a Quaker, but my, how she could dance. You would not know her now.”

“I want to see her,” said the Governor, rising to his feet.

It was getting dark, so Fisher lit a rushlight, and led the way. He opened the heavy door without rapping. His wife and daughter sat on high-backed rush-bottomed chairs on either side of the big four-poster bed, which had come from the Rhine country. On the bed lay a woman of about forty years, frightfully emaciated by suffering, whose exaggeratedly clear-cut features were accentuated in their marble look by the pallor of oncoming dissolution. Her wavy, dark hair, parted in the middle, made her face seem even whiter.

“Mary, Mary,” said the little Governor, as he ran to her side, seizing the white hands which lay on the flowered coverlet.

“John, my darling John,” gasped the dying woman.

“Leave us alone together,” commanded the Governor.

The women looked at one another as they retired. The thoughts which their glances carried indicated “well, after all the story’s true.”

They had been alone for about ten minutes when Penn ran out of the door calling, “Come quick, someone, I fear she’s going.”

The household speedily assembled, but in another ten minutes “Mary Warren,” alias Maria Cox-Penn had yielded up the ghost. She is buried on the brushy African-looking hillside which faces the “dreamy Susquehanna,” the Firestone Mountains and the sunset, near where travelers across Broad Mountain pass every day. John Penn returned to Philadelphia and took no more trips to the interior. He divided his time between his town house, 44 Pine Street, and his country seat “Lansdowne.”

During the Revolution he was on parole. He died childless. February 9, 1795, and is said to be buried under the floor, near the chancel, in the historic Christ Church, Philadelphia, which bears the inscription that he was “One of the Late Proprietors of Pennsylvania.” Most probably his body was later taken to England. His wife, nee Allen, survived him until 1813.

The other night in the grand hall of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in the Quaker City, a notable reception was given in honor of the grand historian-governor, William C. Sproul, fresh from his marvelous restoration of the Colonial Court House at Chester. As he stood there, the embodiment of mental and physical grace and strength, the greatest Governor of a generation, receiving the long line of those who came to pay their respects and well wishes, Albert Cook Myers, famed historian of the Quakers, mentioned that the present Governor of the Commonwealth was standing just beneath the portrait of John Penn, one of the last of the Proprietaries. And what a contrast there was! Penn looked so effete and almost feminine with his child-like blonde locks, his pink cheeks, weak, half-closed mouth, his slender form in a red coat, so different from the vigorous living Governor. Penn was also so inferior to the other notable portraits which hung about him–the sturdy Huguenot, General Henri Bouquet, the deliverer of Fort Duquesne in 1758 and 1763; the stalwart Scot, General Arthur St. Clair, of Miami fame, who was left to languish on a paltry pension of $180 a year at his rough, rocky farm on Laurel Ridge; the courageous-looking Irishman, General Edward Hand; and, above all, the bold and dashing eagle face of General “Mad Anthony” Wayne. Such company for the last of the Penns to keep! Though lacking the manly outlines of his fellows on canvas, who can say that his life had one whit less interest than theirs–probably much more so, for his spirit had felt the thrill of an undying love, which in the end surmounted all difficulties and left his heart master of the field.

Though his record for statecraft can hardly be written from a favorable light, and few of his sayings or deeds will live, he has joined an immortal coterie led down the ages by Anthony and the beautiful Egyptian queen, by Abelard and Heloise, Dante and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, and here in Pennsylvania by Hugh H. Brackenridge and the pioneer girl, Sabina Wolfe, and Elisha Kent Kane, and the spiritualist, Maria Fox. Love is a force that is all-compelling, all-absorbing and never dies, and is the biggest thing in life, and the story of John Penn and Maria Cox will be whispered about in the backwoods cabins and wayside inns of the Pennsylvania Mountains long after seemingly greater men and minds have passed to forgetfulness.

But for a few lines in the writings of Charles P. Keith, H. M. Jenkins, Nevin W. Moyer and various Penn biographers, such as Albert Cook Myers, the verbal memories of ’Squire W. H. Garman, James Till, Mrs. H. E. Wilvert and other old-time residents of the vicinity of “Tulliallan,” all would be lost, and the inspiration of a story of overwhelming affection unrecorded in the annals of those who love true lovers.

II
At His Bedside

When old Jacob Loy passed away at the age of eighty years, he left a pot of gold to be divided equally among his eight children. It was a pot of such goodly proportions that there was a nice round sum for all, and the pity of it was after the long years of privation which had collected it, that some of the heirs wasted it quickly on organs, fast horses, cheap finery and stock speculations, for it was before the days of player-pianos, victrolas and automobiles.

Yolande, his youngest daughter, was a really attractive girl, even had she not a share in the pot of gold, and had many suitors. Though farm raised and inured to hardships she was naturally refined, with wonderful dark eyes and hair, and pallid face–the perfect type of Pennsylvania Mountain loveliness.

Above all her admirers she liked best of all Adam Drumheller, a shrewd young farmer of the neighborhood, and eventually married him. Three children were born in quick succession, in the small tenant house on his father’s farm in Chest Township, where the young couple had gone to live immediately after their wedding.

Shortly after the birth of the last child old Jacob Drumheller died, and the son and his family moved into the big stone farmhouse near the banks of the sulphurous Clearfield Creek. It was not long after this fortuitous move that the young wife began to show signs of the favorite Pennsylvania mountain malady–consumption. Whether it was caused by a deep-seated cold or came about from sleeping in rooms with windows nailed shut, no one could tell, but the beautiful young woman became paler and more wax-like, until she realized that a speedy end was inevitable. Many times she found comfort in her misfortune by having her husband promise that in the event of her death he would never remarry.

“Never, never,” he promised. “I could never find your equal again.”

He was sincere in some respects; it would be hard to find her counterpart, and she had made a will leaving him everything she possessed, and he imagined that the pot of gold transformed into a bank balance or Government bonds would be found somewhere among her effects.

Before ill health had set in he had quizzed her many times, as openly as he dared, on the whereabouts of her share of the pot.

“It is all safe,” she would say. “It will be forthcoming some time when you need it more than you do today,” and he was satisfied.

As she grew paler and weaker Adam began to think more of Alvira Hamel, another comely girl whom he had loved when he railroaded out of Johnstown, at Kimmelton, and whom he planned to claim as his own should Yolande pass away.

SCENE IN SNYDER-MIDDLESWARTH PARK

Perhaps his thoughts dimly reflected on the dying wife’s sub-conscious mind, for she became more insistent every day that he promise never to remarry.

“Think of our dear little children,” she kept saying, “sentenced to have a stepmother; I would come back and haunt you if you perpetrate such a cruelty to me and mine.”

Adam had little faith in a hereafter, and less in ghosts, so he readily promised anything, vowing eternal celebacy cheerfully and profoundly.

When Yolande did finally fade away, she died reasonably happy, and at least died bravely. She never shed a tear, for it is against the code of the Pennsylvania Mountain people to do so–perhaps a survival of the Indian blood possessed by so many of them.

Three days after the funeral Adam hied himself to Ebensburg to “settle up the estate,” but also to look up Alvira Hamel, who was now living there. She seemed glad to see him, and when he broached a possible union she acted as if pleased at everything except to go on to that lonely farm on the polluted Clearfield Creek.

By promising to sell out when he could and move to Barnesboro or Spangler, a light came in her dark eyes, and though he did not visit the lawyer in charge of his late wife’s affairs, his day in town was successful in arranging for the new alliance with his sweetheart of other days.

In due course of time it was discovered that the equivalent of Yolande’s share of the pot of gold left by old Jacob Loy was not to be found. “She may have kept it in coin and buried it in the orchard,” was some of the very consoling advice that the lawyer gave.

At any rate it was not located by the time that Adam and Alvira were married, but the bridegroom[bridegroom] was well to do and could afford to wait. After a short trip to Pittsburg and Wheeling the newly married couple took up housekeeping in the big brick farmstead above the creek.

The first night that they were back from the honeymoon–it was just about midnight and Alvira was sleeping peacefully–Adam thought that he heard footsteps on the stairs. He could not be mistaken. Noiselessly the door opened, and the form of Yolande glided into the room; she was in her shroud, all white, and her face was whiter than the shroud, and her long hair never looked blacker.

Along the whitewashed wall by the bedside was a long row of hooks on which hung the dead woman’s wardrobe. It had never been disturbed; Alvira was going to cut the things up and make new garments out of them in the Spring. Adam watched the apparition while she moved over to the clothing, counting them, and smoothed and caressed each skirt or waist, as if she regretted having had to abandon them for the steady raiment of the shroud.

Then she came over to the bed and sat on it close to Adam, eyeing him intently and silently. Just then Alvira got awake, but apparently could see nothing of the ghost, although the room was bright as day, bathed in the full moon’s light.

Yolande seemed to remain for a space of about ten minutes, then passed through the alcove into the room where the children were sleeping and stood by their bedside. The next night she was back again, repeating the same performance, the next night, and the next, and still the next, each night remaining longer, until at last she stayed until daybreak. In the morning as the hired men were coming up the boardwalk which led to the kitchen door, they would meet Yolande, in her shroud coming from the house, and passing out of the back gate. On one occasion Alvira was pumping water on the porch, but made no move as she passed, being evidently like so many persons, spiritually blind. The hired men had known Yolande all their lives, and were surprised to see her spooking in daylight, but refrained from saying anything to the new wife.

Every day for a week after that she appeared on the kitchen porch, or on the boardwalk, in the yard, on the road, and was seen by her former husband many times, and also her night prowling went on as of yore. The hired men began to complain; it might make them sick if a ghost was around too much; these spooks were supposed to exhale a poison much as copperhead snakes do, and also draw their “life” away, and they threatened to quit if she wasn’t “laid.” All of them had seen spooks before, on occasion, but a daily visitation of the same ghost was more than they cared about.

Had it not been for the excitable hired men, Adam, whose nerves were like iron, could have stood Yolande’s ghost indefinitely. In fact, he thought it rather nice of her to come back and see him and the children “for old time’s sake.” But the farm hands must be conserved at any cost, even to the extent of laying Yolande’s unquiet spirit.

The next night when she appeared, he made bold and spoke to her: “What do you want, Yolande,” he said softly, so as not to wake the soundly sleeping Alvira at his side. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”

Yolande came very close beside him, and bending down whispered in his ear: “Adam,” said she, “how can you ask me why I am here? You surely know. Did you not, time and time again, promise never to marry again, if I died, for the sake of our darling children? Did you not make such a promise, and see how quickly you broke it! Where I am now I can hold no resentments, so I forgive you for all your transgressions, but I hope that Alvira will be good to our children. I have one request to make: After I left you, you were keen to find what I did with my share of daddy’s pot of gold. I had it buried in the orchard at my old home, under the Northern Spy, but after we moved here, one time when you went deer hunting to Centre County, I dug it up and brought it over here and buried it in the cellar of this house. It is here now. There are just one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces; that was my share. The children and the money were on my mind, not your broken promise and rash marriage, which you will repent, and which I tell you again I forgive you for. I want my children to have that money, every one of the one hundred and fifty-three twenty dollar gold pieces. I buried it a little to the east of the spring in the cellar, about two feet under ground, in a tin cartridge box; Dig it up tomorrow morning, and if you find the one hundred and fifty-three coins, and give every one to the children, I will never come again and upset your hired men. Why I have Myron Shook about half scared to death already, but if you don’t find every single coin I’ll have to come back until you do, or if you hold it back from the children, you will not be able to keep a hireling on this place, or any other place to which you move. Many live folks can’t see ghosts; your wife is one of these; she will never worry until the hired men quit, then she’ll up and have you make sale and move to town. Be square and give the children the money, and I’ll not trouble you again.”

“Oh, Yolande,” answered Adam in gentle tones, “you are no trouble to me, not in the least. I love to have you visit me at night, and look at the children, but you are making the hired help terribly uneasy. That part you must quit.”

“That’s[“That’s] enough of your drivel, Adam,” spoke Yolande, in a sterner tone of voice. “Talk less like a fool, and more like a man. Dig up that money in the morning, count it, and give it to the children and I’ll be glad never to see you again.”

To be reproached by a ghost was too much for Adam, and he lapsed into silence, while Yolande slipped out of the room, over to the bedside of the sleeping children, where she lingered until daylight.

Adam was soon asleep, but was up bright and early the next morning, starting to dress just as the ghost glided out of the door. By six o’clock he had exhumed Yolande’s share of the pot of gold which was buried exactly as her ghostly self had described.

It was a hard wrench to hand the money over to the children, or rather to take it to Ebensburg and start savings accounts in their names. But he did it without a murmur. The cashier, a horse fancier, gave him a present of a new whip, of a special kind that he had made to order at Pittsburg, so he came home happy and contented.

Night was upon him, and supper over, he retired early, dozing a bit before the “witching hour.” As the old Berks County tall clock in the entry struck twelve, he began to watch for Yolande’s accustomed entrance. But not a shadow appeared. The clock struck the quarter, the half, three quarters and one o’clock. No Yolande or anything like her came; she was true to her promise, as true as he had been false. It was an advantage to be a ghost in some ways. They were honorable creatures.

Adam did not know whether to feel pleased or not. His vanity had been not a little appealed to by a dead wife visiting him nightly; now he was sure that it wasn’t for love of him or jealousy, she had been coming back, but to see that the children got the money that had been buried in the cellar. And at last she had spoken rather unkindly, so the great change called death had ended her love, and she wasn’t grieving over his second marriage at all. However, he fell to consoling himself that she had chided him for breaking his word and marrying again; she must have cared for him or she would not have said those things. Then the thought came to him that she wasn’t really peeved at anything concerning his marriage to Alvira except that the children had gotten a stepmother. He wondered if Alvira would continue to be kind to them. Just as he went to sleep he had forgotten both Yolande and Alvira, chuckling over a pretty High School girl he had seen on the street at the ’burg, and whom he had winked at.

III.
The Prostrate Juniper

Weguarran was a young warrior of the Wyandots, who lived on the shores of Lake Michigan. In the early spring of 1754 he was appointed to the body-guard of old Mozzetuk, a leader of the tribe, on an embassy to Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, to prevail on the holy men there, as many Indians termed the Moravians, to send a band of Missionaries to the Wyandot Country, with a view of Christianizing the tribe, and acting as advisors and emissaries between[between] the Wyandots and allied nations with the French and other white men, who were constantly encroaching on the redmen’s territories.

Weguarran the youngest and the handsomest of the escort[escort], was very impressionable, and across Ohio and over the Alleghenies, he made friends with the Indian maidens of the various encampments passed en route.

The reception at Bethlehem was cordial, but not much hope was held out for an immediate despatch of Missionaries as the Moravians were anxious to avoid being drawn into the warlike aspirations of the English and French, preferring to promote the faith in pacified regions, as very few of them were partisans, but if they had a leaning at all, it was toward the French. This was due to the fact that the French always understood the Indians better than the English, were more sympathetic colonizers, and while many French Missionaries carried forward the tenets of Rome, there was no religious intolerance, and Missionaries of every faith seemed to thrive under their leadership.

While at Bethlehem and Nazareth, Weguarran was much favored by the Indian maids of those localities, but did not wholly lose his heart until one afternoon at the cabin of an old Christian Pequot named Michaelmas. This old Indian, a native of Connecticut, lived in a log cabin on a small clearing near the Lehigh River, where he cultivated a garden of rare plants and trees, and raised tobacco. All his pastimes were unusual; he captured wild pigeons, which he trained to carry messages, believing that they would be more valuable in wartime than runners. He also practiced falconry, owning several hawks of race, goshawks, marsh hawks and duck hawks. The goshawks he used for grouse, wood-cocks and quails; the marsh hawks for rabbits, hares and ’coons; and the duck hawks for wild ducks and other water birds, which fairly swarmed on the Lehigh in those days. He was a religious old man, almost a recluse, strong in his prejudices, and was much enthused by the Wyandot embassy, giving his waning hopes a new burst of life for an Indian renaissance.

He took a great fancy to the manly and handsome Weguarran, inviting him to his cabin, and it was there that the youthful warrior met the old man’s lovely daughter, Wulaha. She was an only child, eighteen years of age. Her mother belonged to the Original People and was also a Christian.

Love progressed very rapidly between Weguarran and Wulaha, and as the time drew near for the embassy to depart, the young girl intimated to her lover that he must discuss the subject with old Michaelmas, and secure his approval and consent, after the manner of white Christians.

The old Pequot was not averse to the union, which would add another strain of Indian blood to the family, but stated that a marriage could only take place on certain conditions. Weguarran, in his conversations with Michaelmas, had told him of his military affiliations with the French, which had filled the old man’s heart with joy for the hopes of a new order of things that it seemed to kindle. When he asked the hand of the fair Wulaha in marriage, Michaelmas “came back” with the following proposition:

“Weguarran, I am getting old and feeble,” he said. “I may pass away any time, and I could not bear the thought of my squaw being left alone, which would be the case if you married Wulaha and took her to the distant shores of Lake Michigan. However, there are greater things than my death and my squaw’s loneliness, the future of the red race, now crushed to earth by the Wunnux, as we call the white men, but some day to be triumphant. You have told me that within this very year the French and Indians are sure to engage the English in a mighty battle which will decide the future history of the Continent. You can marry Wulaha right after that battle, if you are victorious; otherwise you can do as the Missionaries tell us the Romans did–fall on your sword. You can never return here, as I do not want my daughter to marry and continue the race of a beaten people. I would far rather have her die single, and have our seed perish, for if this victory is not won, doomed is every redman on this Continent. The only wish of the English is to encompass our extermination. Wulaha will remain at home until after that battle, when you can come for her and claim her as your own, and we will give her to you with rejoicing.”

“What you say is surely fair enough, Father Michaelmas,” replied Weguarran, “for I would see no future for Wulaha and myself if the English are victorious in this inevitable battle. As soon as it is won–and it will be won, for the high resolve of every Indian warrior is to go in to win–I will hurry back to the banks of the Lehigh, never stopping to rest, sleep or eat, to tell you of the glad tidings, and bear away my beloved Wulaha. I want to ask one special favor of you. I have admired your wonderful cage of trained wild pigeons, which you say will carry messages hundreds of miles. Lend me one of these pigeons, and as soon as the victory is won, I will release the bird, and while I am speeding eastward on foot, our feathered friend will fly on ahead and end the suspense, and bring joy to yourself, your squaw and Wulaha.”

“I will gladly let you have my best trained pigeon, or hawk, or anything I possess, if I can learn of the victory, but in turn I will ask a favor of you. I listened with breathless interest to your tales of the Prostrate Junipers which grow on the shores of the great lakes, which cover two thousand square feet, and are hundreds of years old. You promised to bring me a scion of one of those curious trees, so that I might plant it in my garden of rare trees and shrubs. Now, here will be a chance to associate it with the great victory; pluck a stout but small scion, and if the victory is won, affix it firmly to one of the pigeon’s legs and let it go. If it comes back without the twig of Juniper I will know that our cause has lost, and while you fall on your sword, I and my family will jump into the Lehigh.”

“I will gladly do as you say, Father Michaelmas,” said Weguarran, “and will send a twig that will grow, and some day make a noble tree, and in years to come, our people will call it Weguarran’s Victory Tree. The[The] fact that it is a Prostrate Tree makes it all the more appropriate, as it will represent the English race lying prostrated, crushed by the red race they wronged, and by our kindly and just French allies.”

Weguarran was so inspired by the thought of the pigeon messenger, the sprig of Prostrate Juniper, and the impending victory that it assuaged his grief at the parting from Wulaha, sending him away determined to give a good account of himself in all things.

Old Michaelmas selected a handsome cock pigeon, with a dragon’s blood red breast–his very best and most intelligent, and surest flyer, named Wuskawhan, which he placed in a specially built, bottle shaped basket, which had no lid, yet the top was too small for the bird to escape. In this way it could rise up and peer out, as it was carried along, and not bruise its wing coverts or head, as it would if it flew against the top of a square basket with a lid.

After a touching parting with Wulaha, her mother and father, the young warrior went his way with his precious burden.

The Indians, even old Mozzetuk, were rapid travellers, and in due time they reached the country of the Prostrate Junipers on the shores of Lake Michigan. They arrived in what seemed like an armed camp, for all the braves had been called to arms, which plotted to drive Indians and French to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Weguarran was quickly mobilized, and a musket in one hand and tomahawk in the other, while on his back he bore the sacred pigeon, he marched toward his foes. In the excitement he had not forgotten to slip into his pouch at his belt a sprig of the Prostrate Juniper, which would be the emblem of the English race prostrate under the foot of French and Indian allies.

In due course of time the army of which the picked Wyandot warriors formed a part, met their English foemen on Braddock’s Field, completely routing and all but annihilating them. General Braddock himself was shot from behind by one of his own men in the wild stampede, and the French and Indians were completely victorious.

Surveying the gorey[gorey] scene, every wooded glade lying thick with dead redcoats and broken accoutrements, Weguarran carefully opened the panther skin pouch at his best, taking out the sprig of Prostrate Juniper. Then he lifted the handsome wild pigeon from its bottle-nosed cage of oak withes, and with a light leathern string, affixed the little twig, on which the berries still clustered, to the bird’s leg, then tossed the feathered messenger up into the air.

The pigeon quickly rose above the trees, circled a few times, and then started rapidly for the east, as fast as his broad, strong wings could carry him.

This done, Weguarran visited his chief, obtaining leave to proceed to Bethlehem to claim his bride, promising to report back with her on the banks of the Ohio as speedily as possible. The pigeon naturally had a good start, and by the next morning was flying over the palisaded walls of John Harris’ Trading Post on the Susquehanna.

A love story was being enacted within those walls, in the shadow of one of the huge sheds used in winter to store hides. Keturah Lindsay, Harris’ niece, an attractive, curly-haired Scotch girl, was talking with a young Missionary whom she admired very much, Reverend Charles Pyrleus, the protege of Col. Conrad Weiser.

Unfortunately they had to meet by stealth as his attentions were not favored by the girl’s relatives, who considered him of inferior antecedents. They had met in the shed this fair July morning, whether by design or accident, no one can tell, and were enjoying one another’s society to the utmost.

In the midst of their mutual adoration, the dinner gong was sounded at the trading house, and Keturah, fearful of a scolding, reluctantly broke away. As she came out into the sunlight, she noticed a handsome wild pigeon drop down, as if exhausted, on one of the topmost stakes of the palisade which surrounded the trading house and sheds.

Keturah, like many frontier girls, always carried a gun, and quickly taking aim, fired, making the feathers fly, knocking the bird off its perch, and it seemed to fall to the ground outside the stockade[stockade]. In a minute it rose, and started to fly off towards the east. She had reloaded, so fired a second time, but missed.

“How strange to see a wild pigeon travelling through here at this time of year,” she thought, as carrying her smoking firearm, she hurried to the mess room of the big log trading house.

The messenger pigeon had been grievously[grievously] hurt, but was determined to go “home.” On and on it went, sometimes “dipping” like a swallow, from loss of blood, but by sheer will power keeping on the wing. As it neared the foothills of the South Mountains, near the village of Hockersville, with old Derry Church down in the vale, it faltered, spun about like a pin wheel, and fell with a thud. Gulping and blinking a few times, it spread out its wide pinions and lay on its breastbone–stone dead–the twig of Prostrate Juniper still affixed to one of its carmine feet. There it lay, brave in death, until the storms and winds shivered it, and it rotted into the ground.

Weguarran was a rapid traveler, and in forced marches came to the shady banks of the Lehigh in three or four days. He was so excited that he swam the stream. He brought the first news of the great victory in the west to the surprised Michaelmas and his friends. But where was the prized wild pigeon, Wuskawhan? It could not have gone astray, for such a bird’s instinct never erred. “Caught by a hawk or shot down by some greedy fool of a Wunnux” was the way in which old Michaelmas explained its non-appearance.

The news spread to the white settlements and to the towns, and there was consternation among all sympathizers with the Crown–with all except a few Moravians who were mum for policy’s sake, and the Indians, whose stoical natures alone kept them from disclosing the elation that was in their hearts.

A MAMMOTH SHORT-LEAF PINE

“The English never wanted the Indians civilized,” said Michaelmas, boldly. “They drove the Moravians out of Schadikoke and from the Housatonic when they saw the progress they made with our people; were it not for the Quakers in Pennsylvania, they would have had no place to harbor; those of us who felt the need of these kind friends followed them in their exile, but we can never forgive that we had to leave the Connecticut country of our birth under such circumstances. I am glad that our enemies were beaten and annihilated.”[annihilated.”]

Weguarran was baptized, and he and the lovely Wulaha were married by one of the Moravian preachers, and started for the great lake country, which was to be their permanent home.

Michaelmas and his squaw were too old to make the long journey, but they were happy in their garden of rare trees and plants, the wild pigeons, the hawks of race, and the dreams of an Indian renaissance. They lived many years afterwards, and are buried with the other Christian Indians at Bethlehem.

Out in the foothills of the South Mountains, overlooking old Derry Church, in the fertile Lebanon Valley among the pines and oaks and tulip trees, a strange seedling appeared in the spring of 1756, different from anything that the mountain had known since prehistoric times. Instead of growing upward and onward as most brave trees do, it spread out wider and greater and vaster, until, not like the symbol of the Anglo-Saxon prone beneath the heel of French and Indian, it was the symbol of the all diffusing power of the English speaking race, which has grafted its ideals and hopes and practical purposes over the entire American Continent. Nourished by the life’s blood of the travelling pigeon that bore it there, it had a flying start in the battle of existence, and today, after all these years, bids fair to last many years longer, to be the arboral marvel and wonder of the Keystone State.

Well may the Boy Scouts of Elizabethtown feel proud to be the honorary custodians of this unique tree with its spread of 2,000 feet, for apart from its curious appearance and charm, it has within it memories of history and romance, of white men and red, that make it a veritable treasure trove for the historian and the folk-lorist, and all those who love the great outdoors in this wonderful Pennsylvania of ours!

IV.
Out of the Ashes

Last Autumn we were crossing Rea’s Hill one afternoon of alternate sunshine and shadow, and as we neared the summit, glanced through several openings in the trees at the wide expanse of Fulton County valleys and coves behind us, on to the interminable range upon range of dark mountains northward. In the valleys here and there were dotted square stone houses, built of reddish sandstone, with high roofs and chimneys, giving a foreign or Scottish air to the scene. Some of these isolated structures were deserted, with windows gaping and roofs gone, pictures of desolation and bygone days.

Just as the crest of the mountain was gained, we came upon a stone house in process of demolition, in fact all had been torn away, and the sandstone blocks piled neatly by the highway, all but the huge stone chimney and a small part of one of the foundation walls. Work of the shorers had temporarily ceased for it was a Saturday afternoon. Affixed to the chimney was a wooden mantel, painted black, of plain, but antique design, exposed, and already stained by the elements, and evidently to be abandoned by those in charge of the demolition.

The house stood on the top of a steep declivity, giving a marvelous view on four sides, almost strategic enough to have been a miniature fortress!

It was the first time in a dozen years that we had passed the site; in 1907 the house was standing and tenanted, and pointed out as having been a temporary resting place of General John Forbes on his eastern march, after the successful conquest of Fort Duquesne, in 1758. Now all is changed, historic memories had not kept the old house inviolate; it was to be ruthlessly destroyed, perhaps, like the McClure Log College near Harrisburg, to furnish the foundations for a piggery, or some other ignoble purpose.

As we passed, a pang of sorrow overcame us at the lowly state to which house and fireplace had fallen, and we fell to recounting some of the incidents of the historic highway, in military and civil history, the most noteworthy road in the Commonwealth. The further, on we traveled, the more we regretted not stopping and trying to salvage the old wooden mantel, but one of our good friends suggested that if we did not are to return for it, we should[should] mention the matter to the excellent and efficient Leslie Seylar at McConnellsburg, who knew everyone and everything, and could doubtless obtain the historic relic and have it shipped to our amateur “curio shop.”

The genial Seylar, famed for his temperamental and physical resemblance to the lamented “Great Heart,” was found at his eyrie and amusement centre on top of Cove Mountain, and he gladly consented to securing the abandoned mantel. As a result it is now in safe hands, a priceless memento of the golden age of Pennsylvania History.

But now for the story or the legend of the mantel, alluded to briefly last year in the chapter called the “Star of the Glen,” in this writer’s “South Mountain Sketches.” The story, as an old occupant of the house told it, and he survived on until early in the Nineteenth Century was, that General Forbes, on this victorious eastern march, was seized many times with fainting fits. On every occasion his officers and orderlies believed that the end had come, so closely did he simulate death. But he had always been delicate, at least from his first appearance in Pennsylvania, though when campaigning with the gallant Marshal Ligonier in France, Flanders and on the Rhine, participating in the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy and Lauffeld, no such symptoms were noted. Although less than fifty years of age when he started towards the west, he was regarded, from his illnesses, as an aged person, Sherman Day in his inimitable “Historical Collections” states that there was “much dissatisfaction in the choice of a leader of the expedition against Fort Duquesne, as General Forbes, the commander, was a decrepit old man.”[man.”]

What caused his ill health history has not uncovered at this late date. It has been said that he was an epileptic, like Alexander and other great generals, or a sufferer from heart trouble or general debility. His military genius outweighed his physical frailties, so that he rose superior to him, but it must not be forgotten that he was aided by two brilliant officers, Colonel George Washington and Colonel Henry Bouquet.

His immediate entourage was a remarkable one, even for a soldier of many wars. Like a true Scotsman, he carried his own piper with him, Donald MacKelvie, said to be a descendant of the mighty MacCrimmons; and his bodyguard was also headed by a Highlander, Andrew MacCochran, who had been a deer stalker on one of the estates owned by the General’s father.

Forbes himself, being a younger son, was not a man of property, and Pittencrief House, his birth-place, was already occupied by an older brother, from whom, so Dr. Burd S. Patterson tells us, all who claim relationship to him are descended.

The General was carried in a hammock, with frequent stops, from Harris’ Ferry to Fort Duquesne, and back again, borne by four stalwart Highlanders, in their picturesque native costumes, wearing the tartan of the Forbes clan. The deerstalker, MacCochran, was the major domo, and even above the chief of staff and Brigade Surgeon, gave the orders to halt when the General’s lean weazened face indicated an over-plussage of fatigue.

It was late in the afternoon as the returning army had neared the summit of Rea’s Hill; the pipers were playing gaily Blaz Sron, to cheer foot soldiers and wagoners up the steep, rocky, uneven grade, with the General in the van. The ascent was a hard one, and the ailing commander-in-chief was shaken about considerably, so much so that MacCochran was glad to note the little stone house, where he might give him his much needed rest.

Old Andrew McCreath and his wife, a North of Ireland couple, the former a noted hunter, occupied the house; their son was serving in the Pennsylvania Regiment, which formed a part of General Forbes’ expeditionary forces. The old folks were by the roadside, having heard the bagpipes at a great distance, eager to see the visitors, and catch a glimpse of their hero son. They were surprised and pleased when MacCochran signalled the halt in front of their door, which meant that the entire procession would bivouac for the night in the immediate vicinity. There were several good springs of mountain water, so all could await the General’s pleasure.

Permission was asked to make the house “general headquarters[headquarters]” for the night, which, of course, was quickly given, as the old couple were honored to have such a distinguished visitor. There was a great couch, or what we would today call a “Davenport” in front of the fire, and there the General was laid, the room dark, save for the ruddy glow of the roaring fire, which illuminated every nook and corner, and made it at once as cheerful as it was warm and comfortable.

The General’s eyes were wide open, and he gazed about the room, while his faithful domestics watched him to anticipate every wish. When he was ill he excluded his Staff, but kept his servants with him, and they, with McCreath and his wife, stood in the corners of the room, back of the couch, waiting for his commands.

The piper asked if he could liven his master with a “wee tune or two,” but the General shook his head; his sandy locks had become untied, and flapped about his bony face; he made a motion with his hand that indicated that he wanted to be alone, to try and get some sleep. McCreath and his wife, and their stalwart son, the other bearers of the hammock and litters, and the surgeon of the expedition, Major McLanahan, who had slipped into the room, withdrew, leaving the piper and MacCochran standing in the corner back of the couch, to aid the General should he become violently ill in his sleep.

The General dozed, and the bodyguard became very tired, for they had had a hard march, and sank down on the floor, with their backs to the wall. All was still, save for the tramp, tramp of the sentry outside the window, or the crackle of some giant bonfire in the general campground, or the barking of some camp follower’s dog. The fire had died down a little, but threw great fitful shadows, like a pall, over the sleeping General, and caused an exaggerated shadow of his bold profile to appear on the wall.

All at once, without the slightest warning, he jumped to his feet, with the elasticity of a youth, and arms outstretched, seemed to rush towards the fire. He might have tripped over the pile of cord wood, and fallen in face foremost, had not the ever watchful piper and MacCochran, springing forward, caught him simultaneously in their strong arms. They did not find him excited, or his mind wandering, like a man suddenly aroused from slumbers. On the contrary, he was strangely calm. He whispered in MacCochran’s ear:

“Andy, I have seen my lady of Dunkerck. She came out of the ashes towards me. I rushed forward to greet her, and she went back into the hearth and was gone.”

The General would say nothing further, but allowed himself to be laid out on the couch once more, and be covered with buffalo robes, and while he lay quiet, he slept no more that night, but every minute or so kept looking into the fire. At daybreak, at the sounding of Surachan on the pipes, he was able to start, and the balance of the march executed without incident.

He reached Philadelphia in safety, but within a short time after arriving there he passed away unexpectedly, and was buried in historic Old Christ Church, where a tablet with the following inscription was erected in the Chancel by the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Society of Colonial Wars: “To the Memory of Brigadier-General John Forbes, Colonel of the 17th Regiment of Foot, born at Pittencrief, Fifeshire, 1710, died in Philadelphia, March 11, 1759.”

MacCochran was released from the army, and being enamored of the wild mountain country in the interior of Pennsylvania, returned to the forests. Later, though nearly fifty years old, he enlisted and served through the Revolutionary War in Captain Parr’s Riflemen. After peace was declared he bought the little stone house on Rea’s Hill from young McCreath, who had served with him in the Rifle Brigade, and lived there alone until he died about 1803. He said that he liked the place for its memories of General Forbes, and he was always fond of telling to his mountaineer friends when they dropped in of an evening for a smoke and a toddy, of his hero’s exploits in peace and war, and more than once recounted the tale of the wraith which appeared to the General at the fireplace, during his eastward journey from Fort Duquesne.

General Forbes, he said, as noted previously, was a younger son, and had entered the army early in life. He had been too busy campaigning to marry, but not always too busy to fall in love. Yet he was a serious-minded man, and his romances were always of the better sort, and would have ended happily on one or more occasions but for the exigencies of his strenuous campaigns[campaigns], which moved him from place to place.

Of all his love affairs, the one that hit him the hardest, and lasted the longest, occurred after the victory of Lauffeld, won by Marshal Ligonier, when, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he was quartered with his regiment at Dunkerck, preparatory to embarking for England. Colonel Forbes’ billet was with one Armand Violet, a rich shipowner, who resided in a mediaeval chateau, which his wealth[wealth] had enabled him to purchase from some broken-down old family, on the outskirts of the town. It was built on a bare, chalky cliff, overlooking the sea, where the waves beat over the rocks, and sent the spray against the walls on stormy nights, and the wind, banshee-like, moaned incessantly among the parapets.

Violet was away a good deal, and his wife was an invalid, and peculiar, but their one daughter, Amethyst Violet, was a ray of sunshine enough to illuminate and radiate the gloomiest fortress-like chateau. She was under eighteen, about the middle height, slimly and trimly built, with chestnut brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion; her hair was worn in puffs over her ears and brushed back from her brows, just as the girls are again wearing it today; she was vivacious and intelligent, and detected in the Colonel, despite his thirty-seven years, a man of superior personality and charm.

In the long wait, due to conflicting orders, and the non-arrival of the transport, Forbes and Amethyst became very well acquainted, in fact the Colonel was very much in love, but would not dream of mentioning his passion, as he deemed it folly for a man of his years and experience to espouse a mere child. The girl was equally smitten, but more impulsive, and less self-contained.

Every evening the pair were together in the great hall, sitting before the fire in the old hearth, their glances, which often met, indicating their feelings, but the Colonel confined his talk to descriptions of military life, Scotland, its glens and locks and wild game, old legends and ballads which he loved to recite. He was particularly fond of repeating the old ballad of Barbara Livingston.

One night while the wind was howling, and the spray was lashing against the castle walls, and the rain dashed and hissed against the panes, the time to retire had come, and Amethyst, instead of tripping away, sprang right into Forbes’ arms, and lay her fluffy head against his bespangled breast.

“You are the coldest man in the world” she sobbed, looking up with tear-dimmed blue eyes. “What have you meant all these nights, we two alone for hours and hours, your eyes on only the sparks as they swept upwards through the ‘louvre,’ and your thoughts only on battles and mountain scenery. I love you more than all the world, and yet you could not see it, or did not care. I can restrain my feelings no longer; tell me the truth, for I cannot bear the suspense and live.”

Forbes revealed his love by holding her very tight, and covering her wet, hot eyelids with kisses. “Oh, foolish, darling Amethyst,” he said, “I love you just as much as you care for me. I have from the first moment I saw you, and hoped that the transport would never come, but I am twice your age, and battered by many hard campaigns, and while I think I could make you happy now, ten years hence I would be an old man, and you would despise me.”

Amethyst looked up into his sad, steady eyes, saying, “I don’t care what happens ten years from now; we might both be dead. I love you, and I want you. I will give you a week to decide; if you do not, I will jump off the highest parapet into the sea, and you can have yourself all to yourself, and prosper if you will with your stern Covenanter’s principles.”

The Colonel, though moved, was too prudent a Scot to capitulate. He took the case under advisement, and every night for a week, though chivalrous and charming, neglected to set the beautiful girl’s mind at rest. Yet when he retired to his room, he paced the floor all night, for he knew that the exquisite girl could revive his youth.

The fatal night arrived. Perhaps the result might have been different if Amethyst had reminded her lover of her threat. She was too proud to do so, and the Colonel, thinking that she had forgotten her rash words–to some extent at least–was mum, and they parted gaily, Amethyst darting out of the hall humming the old love song of Barbara Livingston as light on foot, and apparently as light-hearted as any carefree child.

She was never seen again–at least not until Forbes saw her come out of the embers at the fireplace on Rea’s Hill, more than thirteen years later.

When the word came that her room in one of the turrets was empty, a general search was made, revealing the trap-door to the parapet open. In her haste she had omitted dropping it. From that Forbes knew that the worst had happened. When MacCochran told it to him, standing pale and frigid by the ancient hearth, he tried to stroke his small military mustache, to show his sang-froid, but fell in a swoon on the stone floor, lying unconscious for a week.

That was the beginning of the fainting fits that plagued him for the rest of his life, and the commencement of his distaste of life, which caused him to ask for active service in America, in a new and wild environment, far from scenes similar to the terrible tragedy of his love and pride. And yet, out of the fire, in distant Pennsylvania, had appeared the long lost Amethyst Violet, perhaps as a “warning” of his fast approaching end, to open the portals to that better world where they would be together, and all things be as they should.

MacCochran, philosophic and superstitious Scot that he was, had many reasons for lingering in the little stone house. Often he said, when he sat smoking late at night, the shadows from the dying fire would cast dark shapes, much like General Forbes’ bold features, on the walls, and he felt the magnetic spell of his old Master’s presence. Perhaps out of the ashes would emerge Amethyst Violet, or her spirit self, and the lovers could be re-united before his eyes in a shadowland.

But nothing ever happened so fortuitous, and the engraved likenesses of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and Madame d’Albany, unhappy lovers also, which hung on either side of his Revolutionary rifle, above the mantel, looked down on him as if in sympathy, for his fidelity which had survived the grave. The long looked for visitations never came; perhaps among the vaults and cornices and lofts of Old Christ Church, where the General is resting, the reunion of the lovers has taken place, but wherever it has, the place is known only to the spirits of Forbes and the fair Amethyst Violet; there are no witnesses.

And now the present owner of “General Forbes’ Fireplace,” as he calls it, is waiting to set it up in some study or hunting lodge, beneath the skull and antlers of the extinct Irish elk, from Ballybetag Bog, where amid forest surroundings, in the dead of night, he can keep vigil like MacCochran, after reading “Volumes of Quaint and Forgotten Lore,” and maybe be rewarded by a sight of the true lovers from out of the ashes.

V
Wayside Destiny

Like many natives of the Pennsylvania Mountains, Ammon Tatnall was a believer in dreams and ghosts. Even in his less prosperous days, when life was considerable of a struggle, he had time to ponder over the limitless possibilities of the unseen world. Probably his faith in the so-called supernatural was founded on a dream he had while clerking in a hotel at Port Allegheny, during the active days of the lumber business in that part of the Black Forest.

It seemed that his mother was lying at the point of death, and wanted him to come to her, but as she did not know his whereabouts, was suffering much mental anguish. Just in the midst of the dream the alarm clock went off, but he awoke and got up with the impression that his vision had been real. In the office he informed the landlord of his dream. Like a true mountain man, the proprietor merely asked him to come back as soon as he could, such occurrences being not unusual in his range of experience.

AMONG THE VIRGIN HEMLOCKS, BLACK FOREST. (Photograph by W. T. Clarke.)

At home, in the Wyoming Valley, he found conditions exactly as reproduced in the dream. His sudden coming proved the turning point in his mother’s illness; she rallied and got well. During her convalescence, for Tatnall remained longer than he had expected, she told him of a story which her mother had told her of the straight dreaming of some of their ancestors, pioneers of the North Branch.

The woman in question, who lived many years before, dreamed one night that her daughter who lived in Connecticut, and who had married just as they left for Wyoming, appeared to her with a baby in her arms. She[She] said she herself was dead and she desired the baby to be given to the grandmother. As a sign of the reality of the vision, she placed her hand on the wrist of the grandmother, leaving a mark on it that could never be effaced.

The grandmother took the long journey to Connecticut and found that everything had happened as told in the dream. The child grew up, and became the wife of a well-known Methodist preacher, and was famed throughout Northern Pennsylvania for her good deeds.

Tatnall gradually advanced in life, and became agent or traveling salesman for several wholesale lumber concerns. He had gotten his start by being polite to the manager of one of the companies who came up from Pittsburg every week and stopped at the hotel. He made a success as a salesman, and it was a matter of quiet satisfaction to him that in ten years he had[had] sold 160,000,000 feet of lumber. But he had been too busy to marry, too busy to have a home; was a driving, pushing machine in the interests of his employers. Sometimes on the trains he met with intelligent people, but generally his associates were like himself, human dynamos, but without his interest in the supernatural.

There was one railway journey which he took frequently, and on fast trains. His westbound trips carried him through the most mountainous part of the country in the late afternoon, but there was generally light enough to show the various aspects of the wild, rugged landscape. There was a little abandoned graveyard, all overgrown, with an uneven stone wall around it, near where the tracks crossed the river bridge. Standing among the lop-sided and battered tombstones, the tips of some of the older ones of brownstone being barely visible, looking as if they were sinking into the earth, he would always see the figure of a young woman attired completely in grey. The train was always traveling so fast that he counted a different number of stones every time he went by–there were probably a “Baker’s Dozen.”

For a long time he thought that she must be some particularly devoted mourner, a recently bereaved widow, but it did seem a strange coincidence that she should be there on the same days and hour that he passed by in the fast train. Once he called his seat-mate’s attention to the figure, but the companion could see nothing, and laughingly said: “Why, you must be seeing a ghost.”

The word ghost sent a thrill through Tatnall, and after that he said no more to anyone, but conceded to himself that the girl in grey was a wraith of some kind. Though the train did not pass close to the graveyard, and was always moving rapidly, he fancied that he could discern the ghost’s type of feature, or imagined he did; at any rate he had an exact mental picture of what he thought she looked like, and would pick her out in a crowd if he ever saw her in hailing distance.

This had kept up for five years, and he began to feel that it was getting on his nerves; he must either abandon that particular train or go to the graveyard and investigate. He chose the latter course, and one afternoon arrived at the nearest station, via a local train. The graveyard was on the opposite side of the river, and there seemed to be very little hurry on the part of the boatman, who lived on the far shore, to carry him across. It was late in the fall, after Thanksgiving, and the trees were bare of leaves, and shook and rattled their bare branches in the gusts of wind that came out of the east.

He sat down on an old rotting shell of a dugout by the bank, watching the cold, grey current, for the river was high after many days of fall rains. It was a dreary, but imposing scene, the wide, swollen river, the wooded banks and hills beyond, and back of him, high rocky mountains, partly covered with scrubby growth and dead pines.

Finally, in response to frequent calling, he could see the boat launched; it looked like a black speck at first, and gradually drew nearer to him and beached. The boatman was a tiny man, with a long drooping mustache and goatee, wearing a Grand Army button; he was pleasant, but inquisitive, though he “allowed” Tatnall could have no other business than to be a “drummer” bound for the crossroads store on the opposite bank.

Tatnall had remembered a small, dingy store in a hamlet, about half mile from the little cemetery; he had intended going there as he wanted information concerning the families who were buried there. Perhaps he could learn all he wanted to know from the riverman, and save the walk down the track to the store, but for some reason held his tongue.

The boatman’s final remark was that it was strange for anyone to be willing to pay a dollar to be ferried across the river, when most people walked the railroad bridge. It was trespassing on railroad property, and dangerous to do it, but it was worth the risk, many travelers thought.

Arriving safely across the roily current, Tatnall paid and thanked the boatman, and started in the direction of the little country store. In front of the store was a row of mature Ailanthus trees, which seemed like sturdy guards over the old stone structure, which had once been a tavern stand. The porch was filled with packing cases and barrels.

As Tatnall opened the door, he could see a number of habitues seated about on crates and barrels. One of them, a white bearded Civil War Veteran, rose up, leaning heavily on his cane, and bid the stranger welcome. Almost before he had a chance to engage in conversation with the regulars, he glanced behind the counter, where he beheld a young woman, who had just emerged from an inner apartment behind the store room.

In the dim half-light, the dark aquiline face and meagre figure seemed strangely familiar. She was more Oriental than Indian in type, with that curly hair and wonderful nose, those thin lips, and complexion, the deep pink tone of a wild pigeon’s breast. Where had they met before? For a moment his mind refused to correlate, then like a flash, he realized that she was the counterpart of the girl in grey who haunted the little disused cemetery so regularly. And the way she looked at him was as if they had seen one another before; on her face was a look of mild surprise.

Addressing some pleasantries to her, they were soon engaged in conversation, as if they had known each other for years. It was getting late, time to light lamps and fires at home, so the long-winded dissertations of the habitues were left off, to be continued after supper. One by one they filed out of the store; if they had any opinion of the stranger conversing with Elma Hacker, the store-keeper’s niece, it was that he was probably some traveling man, “talking up” his line of goods.

When the last one had gone, and the acquaintance had progressed far enough, Tatnall, leaning over the counter, confided bravely the purpose of his visit to the remote neighborhood. For five years he had been seeing a figure in grey, in the late afternoons, while passing by the little graveyard in the western express. No one else could see it, yet he was certain that his senses were not deceiving him. Did she know anything of this, and could she help him fathom the mystery?

The dark girl dropped her eyes and was silent for a moment. She was hesitating as to whether to disclaim all knowledge, or to be frank and divulge a story which concerned her soul.

“Yes, I do know all about it, how very funny! I, too, have had the power of seeing that figure in grey, though very few others have ever been able to, and many’s the time I’ve been called crazy when I mentioned it. ‘The girl in grey,’ as you call her, strangely enough was an ancestress of mine, or rather belonged to my father’s family, and while I have the same name, Elma Hacker, I don’t know whether I was named for her or not, as my parents died when I was a little girl.

“It used to make me feel terrible when I was a little girl and told about seeing the figure. I hated to be regarded as untruthful or ‘dullness,’ but at last my uncle, hearing of it, came to the rescue and told me not to mind what anyone said, that, from the description, he was sure I had seen the ghost. He had never had the power to see her, but his father, my grandfather had, and other members of the family.

“It was a sad and curious story. It all happened in the days of the very first white settlers in these mountains, when my ancestors kept the first stopping place for travellers, a Stone fortress-like house, in Black Wolf Gap; the ruins of the foundations are still visible, and folks call it ‘The Indian Fort.’ The Hackers were friendly with the Indians, who often came for square meals, and other favors from the genial pioneer landlord and his wife. The Elma Hacker of those days had a sweetheart[sweetheart] who lived alone on the other side of the Gap; his name was Ammon Quicksall, and from all accounts, he was a fine, manly fellow, a great hunter and fighter.

“He would often drop in on his beloved on his way home from his hunting trips, at all hours of the day. One one occasion four Indians appeared at the tavern, intimating that they were hungry, as Indians generally were. Elma carried a pewter dish containing all the viands the house afforded to each, which they sat eating on a long bench outside the door.

“One of the Indians was a peculiar, half-witted young wretch who went by the name of Chansops. He came to the public house quite often, being suspected of having a fondness for Elma and for hard cider. She always treated him pleasantly, but kept him at a distance, and never felt fear of any kind in his presence. No doubt his feelings were of a volcanic order, and under his stoical exterior burned a consuming passion. He was munching his lunch, apparently most interested in his food, when Ammon Quicksall and his hunting dogs hove in sight.

“Their barking and yelping were a signal to Elma, who rushed out of the house to greet her lover, perhaps showing her feelings a trifle too much; though she had no reason to imagine she should restrain herself in the presence of the Indians. All the while Chansops was eyeing her with gathering rage and fury. When Elma took her lover’s arm–she must have been a very impulsive girl–and rested her head against his shoulder, it was too much for the irate Indian.

“He jumped up, firing his pewter dish into the creek which flowed near the house, and danced up and down in sheer fury. His companions tried hard to calm him, as they wanted to keep on good terms with the innkeeper’s[innkeeper’s] family, but he was beyond all control. Quicksall and Elma were walking on the path which led along the creek; their backs were turned, and they little dreamed of the drama being enacted behind them. The other Indians, realizing that Chansops meant trouble, lay hold of him, but he wrenched himself free with a superhuman strength, threatening to kill anyone who laid hands on him again.

“Old Adam Hacker, Elma’s father, finally heard the commotion and came out, and asked in Dutch what the trouble was all about. One of the Indians, the oldest and most sensible, replied that it was only Chansops having a jealous fit because he saw Elma walking off with Quicksall. While these words were being said, Chansops was edging further away, and looking around furtively, saw that he had a chance to get away, and sprang after the retreating couple. Bounding like a deer, he was a few paces behind Quicksall in a twinkling of an eye. He had a heavy old flint-lock pistol with him, which he drew and fired point blank into the young lover’s back at two or three paces. With a groan, Quicksall sank down on the ground, dying before Elma could comfort him.

“Before Adam Hacker or the friendly Indians could reach the scene of the horrid tragedy, Chansops had escaped into the forests, followed by Quicksall’s hounds yelping at his heels. He was seen no more. The dogs, tired and dejected, re-appeared the next day; evidently they had been outraced by the fleet Indian runner.

“It was a blow from which the bereaved girl could not react. She was brave enough at the time, but she was never the same again. She gradually pined away, until she was about my age, she died, and was buried not in the little graveyard, but in her father’s yard. That was done because it was feared that the crazy Chansops might return and dig up her body, and carry it away to his lodge in the heart of the forest. Quicksall was buried in the pioneer cemetery, and that is the place where Elma Hacker of those days evidently frequents, trying to be near her sweetheart’s last resting place, and to reason out the tragedy of her unfulfilled existence.

“It is a very strange story, but odder still, to me, that you, a stranger, should have seen the apparition so frequently, when others do not, and been interested enough to have come here to unravel the mystery.”

“It is a strange story,” said Tatnall, after a pause. He was figuring out just what he could say, and not say too much. “The strangest part is that the figure I have been seeing is the image of yourself, bears the same name, and my name, Ammon Tatnall, has a somewhat similar sound, in fact is cousin-german to ‘Ammon Quicksall.’”

In the gloom Elma Hacker hung her pretty head still further. She was glad that there was no light as she did not want Tatnall to see the hot purple flush which she felt was suffusing her dark cheeks.

“The minute I came into the store,” Tatnall continued, “you looked familiar; it did not take me a minute to identify you as the grey lady.”

“And you,” broke in Elma, “appear just as I always supposed Ammon Quicksall looked.”

How much more intimate the talk would have become, there is no telling, but just then the door was swung open, and in came old Mrs. Becker, a neighbor woman, to buy some bread.

“You must be getting moonstruck, Elma,” she said, “to be here and not light the lamps. Why, it is as dark as Egypt in this room, and you were always so prompt to light them.”

Elma bestirred herself to find the matches, and soon the swinging lamps were lit, and the store aglow.

Again the door was thrown open, and Elma’s uncle came in. He was Adam Hacker, namesake of the old-time landlord, and proprietor of the store. Mrs. Becker got her bread and departed, and Elma introduced Tatnall to the storekeeper. Soon she explained to him the stranger’s business, to which the uncle listened sympathetically. At the conclusion he said:

“It is really curious, after all these years, to have an Adam Hacker, an Elma Hacker and an Ammon Tatnall–almost Quicksall–here together; if Chansops was here it would be as if the past had risen again.”

“Let us hope there’ll be no Chansops this time,” said Tatnall. “Let us feel that everything that was unfulfilled and went wrong in those old days is to be righted now.”

It was a bold statement, but somehow it went unchallenged.

“I believe in destiny, the destiny of wayside cemeteries, of chance and opportunity,” he resumed. “It can be the only road to true happiness after all.”

“How happy we’d all be,” said Elma demurely, “if through all this we could only lay the ghost of my poor ancestress, the grey lady.”

“Nothing that is started is ever left unfinished,” answered Tatnall. “And we of this generation become unconscious actors in the final scenes of a drama that began a couple of centuries ago. In that way the cycle of existence is carried out harmoniously, else this world could not go on if it was merely a jumble of odds and ends, and starts without finishes; as it is, everything that is good, that is worthwhile, sometimes comes to a rounded out and completed fulfillment.”

The moon, which had come out clear, was three parts full, and shed a glowing radiance over the rugged landscape. After supper Ammon and Elma strolled out along the white, moon-bathed road. Coming to a cornfield the girl pointed to a great white oak with a plume-like crest which stood on a knoll, facing the valley, the river, and the hills beyond; they climbed the high rail fence, and slipping along quietly, seated themselves beneath the giant tree. Of the many chapters of human life and destiny enacted beneath the oak’s spreading branches, none was stranger than this one. There until the flaming orb had commenced to wane in the west, they sat, perfectly content. “Oh, how I like to rest on the earth,” said she. “How I love to be here, and look at your wonderful face,” he whispered, as he stroked the perfect lines of her nose, lips, chin and throat.