28. The Man and the Ghost

28. THE MAN AND THE GHOST (24)

A man went hunting. Presently he killed a deer, roasted it and piled up the meat. When it was night a man came and sat down by the fire. The hunter gave him deer meat. He ate for a while and then took the rest of the deer meat and carried it off. When he came back the hunter gave him some more venison and he carried it off. He came back again, he gave him some venison, and he carried it off. So it continued until the venison was exhausted. The last time he took the deer hide and when he had just started off with it the man ran away. He ran on and started to cross a creek on a foot log, but he slipped off and fell into the water. The man behind ran on and on after him, mounted on the foot log, crossed, stopped, ran back, crossed again, and kept going back and forth. "He went this way," he kept saying. When daylight came he went back and disappeared. As soon as the sun rose the hunter, who had remained down in the water, got out and went back to his camp. When he got there he tracked the other. On the way he saw some old spunk stuck into the crack of a tree which he pulled out and threw away. He put fire in there and when the tree burned the ghost, whose house it was, began to cry and was destroyed.