One bitterly cold and windy night in March, the ghost knocked on his bedroom window. Poker Thompson jerked on heavy clothing and boots, grabbed his lantern, and dashed outside to see the skeleton beckoning as it vanished into the trees across the yard. He followed. The skeleton drifted along several yards in front, without regard to the trees. And now the trees thickened as the trail led through a deep pocket of the big woods.

Poker Thompson trudged bravely along with his lantern held high. Suddenly, above the moaning of the wind, he heard a sound that caused him to stop and stand motionless in the ankle-deep leaves.

The sound, a creaking, clanking noise, came again. Apparently it came not from the apparition, which seemed to have vanished, but from somewhere above him.

Poker Thompson stood under an oak tree that was of average forest girth and had many limbs. Unable to spot the origin of the sound, he held the lantern up and looked around, but its feeble glow penetrated only a few feet. Fortunately, bright moonlight bathed the tops of the trees, so he maneuvered below until he got most of the tree branches silhouetted against the moon.

Then his eyes riveted on something in the tree which tore wild gasps from his lips and started a hammer pounding in his chest.

Framed there in the moonlight, about three times as high as his head, was a human skeleton swaying slightly in the wind. Hanging from one bent elbow was a rusty lantern which squeaked and clanked as it bumped against the tree.

Panic gripped Thompson right down to his toes and brought a sound--half-yell and half-scream--tearing from his throat. He stumbled backward, lost his balance, and sat down in the leaves, his eyes never leaving that thing in the tree. Fear activated his feet, and he scrambled up and ran out of the big woods, falling and injuring himself in his haste.

He went by several homes and roused the menfolk, telling them what he had found. They decided to wait until morning before rounding up a group to go back into the woods.

More than thirty men and boys arrived at the tree early the next morning carrying ropes, a makeshift ladder, and shovels for the firm task they would have to perform. All wee unnerved by the thing they saw up in the tree, a bunch of bones, rags, and mummified flesh which hung there as though life still held it together.

Then from the ground underfoot came another discovery. A man knelt and carefully raked the leaves away from the skeleton of a dog. Picked clean of flesh by buzzards and bleached dull gray by the elements, the dog's skeleton, a symmetrical cage of bones and buckled legs, lay with its head toward the tree.

"Old Scatter, sho' as you's boan," a man said, as he dropped to his knees behind the dog's bones and sighted toward the tree.

"He lay here and starved to death waiting for ol' man Crisco to come down outta that tree,' said another man.

"Yeah, and his master was dead all the time," another said. "Old Scatter must have laid here for days and weeks till he weakened and died."

Death had been quicker for Crisco, they decided, as they watched two men climb the creaky ladder up into the tree where the remains decorated the bare limbs. The skeleton was supported partly by a short, jagged branch under the collarbone and partly by a taut length of dirty white beard tangled in some dried skin still fastened around the open jawbones. Although unable to understand what held the skeleton intact, they were at least able to determine the cause of the tragedy. The beard ran through a split in the base of a large, dead limb, which apparently had half-broken under its own weight. The knot on the end had locked the beard in place and had prevented it from slipping back through the crack.

In their minds they could picture old Ferdinand as he climbed jubilantly up the tree to seize the coon Old Scatter had treed. While he paused on a branch, the wind had probably shipped his long beard into the crack of the limb, unnoticed by the man. Then he had lost his footing and had hung there by his beard. Perhaps the sudden jerk had snapped his neck, or had caused unconsciousness. Maybe he had slowly strangled to health. Or maybe he had swung there in agony for hours, wailing and shouting for help until exhaustion and death stilled him, while below, Old Scatter, held there by loyalty, whimpered at his master's distress. The flame of the lantern had burned up the fuel and consumed the wick, then flickered out.

And there in the tree Crisco had remained, undisturbed, until Old Scatter became too weak to bark and frighten the buzzards away.