was an old man, tall
and thin, but as straight as a sapling, and that his head and breast
were hidden in shaggy beard and hair. In his hands he carried a
gun--the gun that had fired the golden bullets--and even at that
distance those who were peering from the gloom of the cabin saw that
it was a long barreled weapon similar to those they had found in the
other old cabin, along with the skeletons of the Frenchmen who had
died in the fatal knife duel.

In breathless suspense the three waited, not a muscle of their bodies
moving. Again the old man leaned over the edge of the rock, and his
voice came to them in a moaning, sobbing appeal, and after a little
he stretched out his arms, still crying softly, as if beseeching help
from some one below. The spectacle gripped at Rod's soul. A hot film
came into his eyes and there was an odd little tremble in his throat.
The Indians were looking with dark, staring eyes. To them this was
another unusual incident of the wilderness. But to Rod it was the
white man's soul crying out to his own. The old man's outstretched
arms seemed reaching to him, the sobbing voice, filled with its
pathos, its despair, its hopeless loneliness, seemed a supplication
for him to come forth, to reach up his own arms, to respond to this
lost soul of the solitudes. With a little cry Rod darted between his
companions. He threw off his cap and lifted his white face to the
startled creature on the rock, and as he advanced step by step,
reaching out his hands in friendship, he called softly a name:

"John Ball, John Ball, John Ball!"

In an instant the mad hunter had straightened himself, half turned to
flee.

"John Ball! Hello, John Ball--John Ball--"

In his earnestness Rod was almost sobbing the name. He forgot
everything now, everything but that lonely figure on the rock, and he
drew nearer and nearer, gently calling the name, until the mad hunter
dropped on his knees and, crumpled in his long beard and gray lynx
skin, looked down upon Rod and sent back a low moaning, answering cry.

"John Ball! John Ball, is that you?"

Rod stopped, with the madman forty feet above him, and something
seemed choking back the very breath in him when he saw the strange
look that had come into the old man's eyes.

"John Ball--"

The wild eyes above shifted for a moment. They caught a glimpse of two
heads thrust from the door of the old cabin, and the madman sprang to
his feet. For a breath he stood on the edge of t