“Hush, Rolfe, I did'nt want to say any thing about that, for the meanest thing I ever did was to follow a jack-a-lantern through a cane-brake. You may guess what sort of a place it was, when I tell you I was obliged to give over hunting, and lay by for two days, to darn my breeches. It bothered me mightily; and I was sticking fast, up to my hips in mud, wondering what the devil it could be, when a notion struck me, that it must be a jack-a-lantern. All at once, I recollected how they used to tell me to ketch 'em; so I got out, and followed on a bit farther, and, thinking I should like to see what it was made of, I determined to put the _thing_ out. Well, I stopped,—the jack-a-lantern kept dancing before me,—I took off my jacket,—the jack-a-lantern got scared, and looked sorry,—I turned the inside towards him,—he grew fainter,—I began to pull the sleeves through, and by the time the whole jacket was wrong side out, he settled down and went out upon an old stump. Well, now you may laugh, but it is every word true.” Rolfe was scarcely able to speak:—“how do you know,” said he, “that it did not merely go out for a little time, and then fly away to another place as these are now doing.” “What! that jack-a-lantern fly away,—the one that I put out;—I tell you, it has never troubled any body from that day to this; if it has, I don't know when a thing is dead.” “What proof have you of it?” “Why, I saw it the next morning, _laid out_ as I told you before, as cold as a wedge.” “Then, do tell us all about it, Earth.” “Well, when the thing fell upon the stump, as I knowed it would, when I took off my jacket,—for turning a jacket wrong side out never fails to kill 'em,—I look my hatchet and marked the place, that I might find it the next morning. So, soon after breakfast, I walked down there, merely that I might satisfy myself; and I had hardly got to the stump, before I seed the jack-a-lantern lying upon it, as I said before, cold as a wedge.” “How was it shaped,” said Rolfe, “and what was its appearance?” “I don't exactly know how it was shaped,” said Earth, “but it looked all in a heap, as if you had emptied your two hands full of jelly upon the top of the stump.” Rolfe had been convulsed with laughter throughout Earth's narrative, and now sunk down overpowered at the finale. “Earth,” said he, “you are mistaken; what you saw was merely the gum which had exuded from the stump.” “Gum!”—said Earth, with a contemptuous sneer, “you must think I am a damn——” then stopping, and looking in another direction, “look there, Rolfe,—look, look.” He obeyed, and beheld a torch, borne by a human being. “Can'st thou move?” said Earth. “I can,” said Rolfe. “Then nerve yourself for a contest, if necessary, and let us see who venture here at this hour of the night. Who knows but this may furnish some clue to the lost maiden.”