stranger, and," he added with another winning
smile, "you are the first stranger with whom I have held converse in
nearly twenty years. That I am not unfriendly I have already proved by
some trifling services, but the honor of the acquaintance is mine."

After the formalities of our meeting were over the stranger stood for a
few moments with his chin resting on his breast. He was evidently
thinking over some serious subject. His head was bare, his fur cap being
in his hands, and his hands locked behind his back. A mass of light
colored hair fell over his forehead and shoulders.

Presently he looked at us again, with that same grave smile on his face,
and said that if we would consent to be blindfolded and trust ourselves
implicitly to his care, he would be glad to take us to his home and
would feel honored if we should choose to visit him.

"You can proceed no further on this trail for it ends here, and not even
a goat can go beyond the rock on which we stand, therefore we must
retrace our steps a few hundred yards," he explained, as he apologized
for his strange proposition. He securely bandaged our eyes with our own
handkerchiefs, and after turning us around until I at least had lost all
sense of direction, he placed thongs in our hands, and then we
discovered that we were to be led by some sort of animals, presumably
wolves. Whatever else they were, they proved to be careful and sagacious
leaders.

After a short distance of rough climbing where we constantly needed the
personal help of our mysterious host, we began to descend and soon our
feet told us that we were traveling on a comparatively smooth though
steep trail. Now and again our guide would speak to warn us of stones or
other obstructions in our path, but, with the exception of these
necessary words of caution and brief words expressing approval or
reproof to the animals, we made the journey in silence and in due time
reached the bottom, and our feet told us that we were walking on a level
shale-covered path.

At this point the creatures leading us were dismissed and we could hear
them scrambling back over the trail. We heard the bleating of sheep, the
lowing of cattle and all the multiplicity of noises so familiar on a
well-stocked farm, and we could easily detect the different odors as
familiar and characteristic as the noises. We enjoyed to its fullest
extent the novelty of the homely sensations aroused by the smell of
new-mown hay and the familiar m