The Saint Paul globe., 1903-07-26
is the New Government Dam
Haunted by Many SpoOks !?

ter. tell ye it gives a man a scare
ter see one O. those soft, Shiny things
that once was as. clipper as you or
me swishin' agin tn wall or bobbin'
agin tn little boat that is tied over
there for tn captains use Sometimes
you en- tell what tn crathue was once
like, but mostly you can't"
Just then the man on the new stone
wall across the river waved d white
handkerchief and the Irishman began
to make cabiIistic signs with his hands
to the men in the tower behind him.
When the tower began to move, the
signal man took a few long whiffs from
his pipe before resuming the conversa-
ton. Sure, I'm not behaving in this
ghost talk" he said, his eyes resting
for awhile on the inky looking dead
water across the river, ''but if there's
sich thing as spooks, there's no rason
to my moind why they shouldn't gath
er about that same spot"
Pierre Tells of Spooks.
Pierres work is not on the river
bank, but down below where the stone
walls of the lock are beginning to jut
out into the current. He is a general
utility man, but like most French Ca
of hard work, to maintain dapper ap-
pearance.
Corpse? Yes, there plent' corpse in
this river. 1 have seen so many as
twenty myself las season. All sorts
they come down the river. men, wom-
en- an little babes. Where they come
from? God knows!" Pierre paused to
straighten the bright colored handker-
chief which encircled his lean brown
throat.
"One day." he continued with the vi
vacity of one who is glad of a listener,
L start cross the river with the cap'n
In that littf boat there. You Sc her
with the oars under the bush JUS we
got out of the dead water one oar
touch something soft and heavy and L
lif' 1T a littP and there was a drown
man on the blade. He was drown JUS
two months, l think. We row back and
spread it ON the shore, the drown man,
and spread some papers over it. And
then the cap'n telephones Minn'aplis
and men come and take it away But
they new found out who he was. Two
months, you see,' said Pierre consider
ingly, lis pret' long while to stay in
the water.
Does River Give Up Spirits?
'Ghosts?" a queer look came into
Pierre's bright blue eyes as he hesi-
tated a minute and glanced stealthily
about the ghosts. People come back
you know, man of them, but these
poor river-eat things" The French
Canadian shrugged his shoulders. 1T
takes man bodies to please this river"
he added softly. For ev'ry bridge, for
ev'ry dam, so man bodies. The Injun
know better than to bind the river.
oh 20
kill himself in the river, mamselle?
have, plent', and always when they
touch the water, no matter how much
they want to die, they try to get out.
For when a man gets in the river like
that, then he knows"
Knows what?" Pierre was asked
"Ev'rything," he answered. turning
up the palms of his hands and shrug-
ging his shoulders.
'Mr. Mcclure there says you think
the river is haunted" Pierre was blunt
ly informed.
He turned around and scowled at the
signal man, whose brawny figure was
sharply outlined against the white
stone masonry on the other side.
THAT Mcclure have no fear of devil or
man." he said shortly. 81 would not be
in McGuire's shoes, not for twent five
dollars"
River Waits Long.
"Why?"
"He calls the Meesippi a littP mud
river and he curses it when things dom
go right. Voilal The river waits a long
time sometime, but it will not wait for
ever"
Somebody called "Pierre," and he
made his way out over the dam, step
ping gingerly among the debris and
taking pains to avoid anything that
looked like djsdain of the rivers pow
ers.
Capt. Powell, who is experimenting
the mems work, was asked if he
thought they were affected by the
finding of so many dead bodies in the
dead waite: caused by the dam.
'If they are superstitious about It,"
he said, 'it does not interfere with
their work. 1 wouldn't blame them
much if they did feel a little queer
about the river, though, for it is sur
prising the number of dead bodies that
have been swept into that dead water
there since the work was commenced
here"
The men begin work at o'clock in
the morning and are through by ).
During these long summer days the
sun is high in the heavens before they
begin work and it has not fallen he
hind the trees in the West when they
put aside their tools and start for
home in the evening. 1t is a notorious
fact that spooks love best the dusk, SO
If it is true that Dam No. is haunted
by some river spirit. as Pierre, the
French Canadian thinks. or by the
ghosts of those bodies that float into
the dead water, as Mcclure, the signal
man, insinuates, there is no human be-
ing present to Interfere with their rev.
els. For not even the children who live
in the few scattered houses not far
from the dam can be persuaded to
visit it after sundown."