At length the night was full upon them, with no light to guide them through those trackless solitudes save the feeble glimmer of the stars through the openings in the tree-tops; still not a sign of the flying foe, whose unseen trail went evermore winding wearily on through the tangled wilds. Now and then, from some distant quarter of the forest, were to be heard the howling of wolves, abroad on their nightly hunt. Then from an opposite quarter, but nearer, the dismal whoopings of the horned owl would send their quavering echoes creeping among the tree-tops, which, swaying to the night winds, filled the air with noises, like half-formed whispers in the ear. Then the shrill cry of the dingle-ambushed panther would ring out through the black stillness, like the shriek of a terrified woman. At one time, hardly had these sounds of evil omen died away, when, on a sudden, there started up before them a tall shape, with long arms outstretched, and all of a ghastly whiteness. The black giant stopped short, fixedly staring before him--all in an instant weak as a limber-jack, the whites of his eyes showing through the dark like half-moons. The thing, there dimly seen in the dusk of the overhanging trees, was, as superstitious fancy pictured it to the eyes of Burlman Reynolds, the ghost of a white hunter who had been murdered and scalped in that lonely spot by the barbarous Indians, and now, in his cold, cold winding-sheet, was lingering around his bones, till some kind soul should come along that way and give the precious relics Christian burial.