 |
|
Imagine a stormy Saturday midnight.
A circle of eager, wide-eyed Boy Scouts huddle around a smoky camp fire at the S-F Scout Ranch in an effort to ward off the cold, the ghosts and the mysterious "Catman" of Doe Run.
Such was the site of at least one telling of this 30-year-old folk tale. Older scouts warned the newer recruits of the dangers in the night.
Seated Indian style on the opposite side of the fire, the story teller begins his yarn about an escaped patient from the state hospital in Farmington.
"He never shaved. He never had a hair cut. He never bathed. And you could never find him," the eerie voice intones.
"But he has been seen, late at night in the light of a full moon, running in the woods between Delassus and Doe Run, and Doe Run and Iron Mountain Lake."
In the late 1960's, curious teenagers are said to have driven through the countryside, looking for the strange, werewolf-like creature, the "Catman."