"We were a precious pair, daddy and son, as we sat under that poplar.
I am sure I never felt so foolish in all my life. Well, back we
started, for my spunk was up; and, beside that, I had left my hat,
handkerchief, dinner, and memorandum book, and was bound to have them.
I felt the most burning curiosity to understand the puzzle while my
mental faculties were completely obfuscated by it.

"Neither of us said a word of the affair itself, for John didn't seem
to know that he had been frightened, and I was afraid to alarm him by
speaking of it. He asked no questions of any sort, although in general
he is a miniature Paul Pry, expressed no surprise that I was
bareheaded and bloody, or that we had come so far from the fishing
place and left our tackle behind. His face expressed confusion, such
as a child will exhibit when he is waked suddenly by falling out of
bed, and commences grasping around the bedpost preparatory to getting
in again. I knew that something frightful was there, and felt that we
had escaped some great peril, but what the object or what the peril I
had no idea whatever. I am sure, however, that the notion of a snake
never entered my mind, but if any thing tangible, if was of a wild
cat, for the recollection of Cooper's panther story in the Pioneers
occurred to me, and I cut a stout hickory sapling to be prepared. We
arrived with slow steps at the haunted spot, for both were exhausted,
and I felt the value of prudence. There lay my basket by the beech
root, more by token that the hogs had found it and were just devouring
the last morsel of bread and meat so carefully deposited therein.

"There was my fishing line, but the eight-pounder had become weary and
worn, and carried off my Limerick hook. There was my hat near the
honeysuckle bush, but the phantom itself, with its diamond eyes and
mystic powers, was gone. Frightened probably by the hogs, unromantic