The Red Cloud chief., 1912-11-28

partition was signfcant-the ship was never
heard OF again.
The rocky coasts OF New England are haunted
by many ghost ships The Palatine IN the best
known specter The coasters and fishermen OF
Long Island Sound will tell you that when sight
of her Is gotten, disastrous and long-lasting
storms will follow. The Paatine. Dutch trader.
misled by false lights shown by wreckers. ran
ashore upon Block Island In the year 1852. The
wreckers when they had stripped the vessel.
set her fire In order to conceal their crime.
As the tide lifted her and carried her flaming
out to sea, agonzing shrieks came from tho
blaze and the figure of a woman who had hid
den herself in the hold in fear Of the wreckers
stood out black amid the roaring blaze. Then
the deck fell In and ship and woman vanished.
The whaling in Nantucket, az you will remem.
Der, was in its palmy days carried on almost en-
tirely by Quakers. One Sunday evening q meet
ing was in progress: the simple service seemed
rs though 1t might pass, and the spirit moved
of the company. The elder Friend was Just
about to offer his hand to his neighbor in the
closing Of the meeting when a stranger rose
and declared that the Lords wrath upon a
certain whaling ship and that he had seen her
in vision descending huge wave from the
hollow Of which she rose. The meeting
closed hurriedly. but the speaker could not be
found. and the ship was never heard Of.
Some of the best ghost stories are those which
tho writer has heard from the simple folk Of the
salt marshes. 1t Is hardly possible to describe
these dreary districts. for when one has said
they are fiat. stretching for miles. and rather
subject to mists. one has said pretty we'll all that
Is to be said-the rest must be felt. However
Just as there is a call OF the sea. go there Ia
call OF the marshland. You shall go into the
satern and feel its moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of its salty winds and the ozone
OF Its calms. You shall be lost in it's vastness,
and threading its innumerable twisted narrow
waterways which lead to nowhere, ye shall
tread Its carpet Of scentless flowers. You shall
90 to Its very edge where the sea comes often.
most and where the flowers decaying leave their
rust'colored remains. There you shall meet mud,
and the cry of tho curlew shall mock M YOU
founder in its nlth. The moon shall come up
refracted by the mist into unrecognizable shape,
which shall be blood color. You shall be gray
shape. differing little from the common things
that are there for you shall be enshrouded by
fog; nay, 1t shall sink into your very soul. until
you are not flesh and bones. but particle of
fog yourself You shall listen to its silences: you
shall be told things by them. and strong man
that you are, you shall be afraid
Is 1t to be wondered at, then that these smple
Essex marshdwellers remember such tales az
that OF the young skipper, home from long
voyage. whose haste to embrace his WIFE and the
babe ne had not yet seen bid him to 60 the nearer
way or the marshes? The tale has II that in
crossing narrow gutway, near Pitsea he sank
in the mud, So deeply did he sink that he could
not extrcate himself; the more he struggled the
deeper he sank. and with the horror of knowing
that the tide was rising and would come stealing
up the creek, he shouted AS the tide rose higher
the louder were his screams The salterns near
Pitsea are lonely: the cries were heard only by
haifwitted peatcutter. who often In his less
sane moments heard such screams and thought
NO more OF the matter So the shrieks became
gMgies. and by the time the tide had lifted tho
pcatcutter's punt they had ceased
the older folk at this stage of the dory as.
sumo mysterious air and. with large.eyed
glancings athwart their shoulders, will tell you
that tho skippers shrieks are heard on starIit
NIGHTS az the tide glides up that creek.
80 mere are my ghost stories. and II I some.
times believe In them when sail all alone o.
the midnight deep. you will not laugh at ma