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“Captain Jonathan Gray.”
    “It is a pleasure to make the acquaintance of you all,” I said.   “My name is Carter Weston.”
    “And what, if we may ask,” spoke the Captain, “is a fellow like yourself doing here, especially on such a night.  Not that we would mind, of course.  We consider ourselves a hospitable people,” he said, politely but inquiringly.  “But the wind has blown up a storm tonight the likes of which we have seldom seen, even here.” 
    As if on cue, a particularly powerful gust shook the brittle panes of the tavern with such ferocity I feared they might shatter.  But then the wind calmed, and the Captain turned his gaze to me again.
    “Well,” I replied, somewhat withered beneath his eyes, “I am a student at Miskatonic.” 
    The captain’s countenance did not change, but I noted the man I now knew as William, the doctor, shuddered at that name.  It was not a reaction I was altogether unfamiliar with.  “I am a folklorist,” I continued.  “I have been traveling about these parts collecting the stories of its people.”
    “And what drives a man to do that?” Captain Gray asked.
    “Well, to preserve them,” I answered.  “And to better understand from whence they came.  I, of course, did not know of the coming storm, not being a man versed in reading the weather, that is.  But I’m here now, and here is where I suppose I will ride it out.”
    “Ah,” the Captain offered.  “So you say you want to understand where these stories come from.  Do you ever suppose perhaps they are true?”
    I smiled back at the Captain, and a little bit of the old skeptic took hold. 
    “Why, of course not. Things such as I have heard exist only in the mind of the teller.” 
    Then, unexpectedly, the three men who sat around me chuckled.  Captain Gray only smiled.  But there was no joy in it, neither in the smile or the laughs.  
    “Ah, my dear boy,” Captain Gray said with a solemnity that betrayed the smile he wore, “there are, indeed, more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.  Let me ask you this,” he continued, “the people with whom you spoke, were they personal witnesses to the substance of the stories they told?”
    “Why, no,” I replied. “First-hand stories are most welcome, but people in my profession rarely receive such a treat.”
    I saw the Captain glance quickly to his companions.  Then, there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes as if they had communicated something to him without words. 
    “Well, my friend.  The night is young, and we are all very thirsty.  So perhaps there is time to share with you some stories of our own.  And then, upon the hearing of them, you can judge for yourself their worth to your studies.”
    I smiled politely.  An opportunity to relieve myself of the burden of the task I faced was welcome. 
    “I think I would enjoy that,” I said. 
    “Then, I will begin,” said the man I had come to know as Jack.  I turned to him, and behind his grizzled beard and beneath his thick, fur-lined hat, his eyes burned with a new intensity that had been absent from them only a few minutes before. 
    “It’s been now on 50 years ago,” he began, growing wistful.  “And yet when I see it in my dreams, it’s as if he were upon me again.”
    “It was,” he said in a deep, sonorous bass not uncommon to the western woods of Massachusetts, “as these things always are, I suppose, long ago.  So long ago now.” 
    He looked down at his glass, and for a long moment I wondered if he had the strength to continue.  A life, no doubt, flashed before his eyes.  But then he spoke again, and I felt myself carried back to those days so long past. 
     

 
    Part II
    Chapter
    5
     
     
    Jack:
     
    I was, if you don’t mind me sayin’, not much older than you, I guess.  Maybe even younger, by the look of you.  I was a fur man by trade, as my father was before me, and as his father before him, all the way