nger and I stood and
looked at each other. He was over six feet in height, but so
symmetrically proportioned in his physical stature that, great as it
was, he was neither awkward nor ungainly. But for the fact that his eye
had lost its earlier brightness and that his hair was sprinkled with
threads of gray, it would have been impossible to believe that he had
reached three-score years and ten, for his form was still erect, his
step elastic, and his voice clear and strong. His features were regular
and strong, giving proof of the man's self-reliant and indomitable
character. Years, perhaps a lifetime of activity in the woods and on the
lakes, had bronzed the man. From beneath heavy eyebrows looked eyes
gray in color and baffling in depth. The man's whole appearance
attracted me singularly.

"Thank ye for your welcome, mister," he began. "I shouldn't have dropped
in on ye at this onseemly hour, but the line of your smoke caught my eye
as I was turning the point yonder. I didn't expect to find a human being
on these shores. I ax your pardon for comin' in on ye, but I have
memories of this spot that made me think strange things when I saw your
camp. I am John Norton, the trapper. And who might you be, young man?"

"I am Henry Herbert," I replied; "but just call me plain Henry."

"Well, Henry," began the old trapper, "I am going to call you that. When
men meet in the woods they don't put on any airs. I have been in these
woods sixty-two years, and they have been a home for me, for my father
and mother are gone, and I have never had wife nor child of my own. And
I have heard of you, Henry. Ye be no stranger to me. For ten years back
I have heard how you like to travel the woods and the waters by
yourself, larning things that Nature does not tell about in crowds. I
have heard, too, that you be a good shot, and that you know the ways of
outwitting the trout and the pickerel. Hearing about you this way, I
knew some day that I would come across your trail; but I never thought
to run agin you to-night, for I'd no idee that mortal man knowed this
lake, save me--save me and that other. . . ."

The old man paused, seated himself on the end of a log, and gazed into
the fire with a solemn look on his face.

I did not feel like breaking in on his meditations, whatever they might
be. I was silent out of deference to his memories.

"This lake," John Norton said at length, "this lake is a strange place.
I have been here for eleven ye