We scraped the snow from the hearth; Tabal, under my instructions, tore off a pile of well-seasoned boards from the loft floor, and soon a crackling fire brightened and cheered the interior of the cabin. My companion was now more at his ease, and spreading our blankets, we laid down with our feet to the grateful fire. As I spread out my blanket I noticed a pool of fresh blood, fully two feet in diameter on the floor by my hand. I covered it instantly, fearful that Tabal might see it. How did it come there? “Tabal,” I said, “tell me now what you meant by this hut having ghosts or ‘hants’ as you term them; and why do you think it so haunted?” He responded with a long story which I will make short: The cove had been cleared thirty years before by Cummings, a denizen of the mountains. One night when he was on a spree in the settlement, his wife, in a crazy fit, hung herself to a cabin rafter. Cummings, with his household property and progeny, deserted the premises, and for many years the cabin remained unoccupied, until a party of hunters made a night’s lodging there, and in an altercation a man named Gil True was instantly killed by an enraged companion. Strange sights and sounds were connected with it after the first death, and more after the second. Every superstitious old woman told some terrible tale about it, until it had become known throughout the country as the “haunted” cabin. After this narrative the train of thoughts which it awakened and the strangeness of my situation prevented me from going immediately to sleep, and hours elapsed before I was in the arms of “Nature’s fond nurse.” Tabal’s regular snoring I suppose put me in that condition. How long I slept I know not, but I awoke with a start. Terrible, blood-curdling cries, like those from a woman or child in distress, came from the end of the room opposite the chimney. The fire was still blazing, and by it I saw that Tabal was awake, lying half raised from his blanket, and with eyes fixed on the back of the room, was intent on listening. Several piercing cries, with intervals between, rang out, and the last one had just died down, when there was a sound of some heavy body falling on the roof, a rumble, then a terrific crash, after which all was darkness, blackest darkness in the room. Successive creakings of the cabin, and sputterings and hissings from the fire-place ensued. I attempted to call out but could not. I leaned over and reached, in the darkness, for my companion. He was not there--nowhere on his blanket, which I felt still unrolled. I groped around the room. Nothing! The room was deserted, and I was alone in the haunted cabin. I leaned out of the door. It was as black outside as in. Again I attempted to call, and then my voice broke from me. The halloo rang out, echoed along the cliff, and instantly seemed swallowed by the night; but no answer came.