What their acquaintances called an “understanding,” existed between Arsula Jordan and Thaddeus Garrett and he had taken her with him up on the mountain to consult Dan Cutter about hauling the timber for a new house. Their horse, Beauregard, having taken the road leisurely, eleven o’clock found them winding along the downhill road but still two miles from their homes in the village. On their right the Junaluska swirled between its wooded banks. The moon was on their right too, throwing shadows across their road, dense or skeleton, as evergreen or deciduous trees obstructed its radiance. “I think I see things a-skulkin’ ’cross the road,” said Arsula, crowding Thad more closely; “do you reckon any wild-cats could have come down off the Bald?” “It’s only the shadders a-shiftin’ theirselves when the wind bends the trees; I didn’t reckon you was that scary, Suly; why there’s nothin’ to be scairt of; _I’m_ here Suly! And _I_ ain’t scairt of anything that travels these yer mountings—leastwise not of anything in flesh and blood.” “Well I ain’t scart of anything that _isn’t_ flesh and blood.” “_You say you ain’t?_” “La, no; I don’t b’lieve in ha’nts.” “_You say you don’t?_” “No I don’t; I b’lieve that when a body’s once plumb dead and buried in the ground, he ain’t goin’ to show hisself on the top side of the earth again till judgment day. “Oh lawdy!” the ejaculation was only aspirated, and Thad brought Beauregard to a stand without speaking to him. They were at a bend of the road where it crossed the river. Above the ford, dark hemlocks arched the stream and the foot log lay in their dense shadow. Upon it something moved like a pale gray cloud, not outlined against the blackness, but softly blending with it. Beauregard saw it too and pricked up his ears. Thad wound the reins round his right hand and even brought his left into action though with a soft apology to Suly: “Looks like I might want all the hands I’ve got to hold him. You take a tight holt of me,” he counselled under his breath and, as the spectre neared the farther side, proceeded chidingly: “It’s powerful triflin’, Suly, to go to talkin’ ’bout ha’nts when you’re out in the woods at night—it’s tollable sure to call ’em up”—a rustling among the dry leaves under the bushes changed the course of his remarks. “If the durn thing ’ud move a little faster, I’d drive into the water and stand a spell; witches and ha’nts and all them things is shy of water.” There was a closer scurry among the leaves and at a twitch of the reins Beauregard drew them into the ford and stopped there in obedience to another silent signal. Above the rustling they heard a panting breath, and another ghost, a nimbler one, was on the log, a light, flying shadow against the dark, stationary ones. “Sho,” said Suly, “it’s only a dog.” She started to whistle but Thad clapped his hand over her mouth: “For gracious sake, Suly, don’t do that—it’s awful darin’.”