he fire to feel its warmth it was only
to be brought leaping to his feet by sparks burning through his
clothes. He finally gave it up and sat against the tree, hardening
himself like an Indian to wait for dawn. His fagged nerves cried for
tobacco. He had lost his pipe with his coat.

The lake stretched before him still and steely in the twilight.
To-night the sun had withdrawn himself modestly and expeditiously, and
the clear, cold face of the sky had an ominous look. The world was
terribly empty. Sam received a new conception of solitude, and a heavy
hand of discouragement was laid on his heart.

Suddenly he perceived that he was not alone. Close under the
pine-walled shore a dugout was swimming toward him with infinite grace
and smoothness. At the first sight his breast contracted, for it
seemed to have sprung out of nothingness--then his heart joyfully
leaped up. At such a moment anything human was welcome. A squat little
figure was huddled amidships, swinging a paddle from side to side with
long, stringy arms.

Sam perceived that the paddler was the aged hunchback who had once
visited the camp at Nine-Mile Point across the lake. "Old Man of the
Lake" they had called him. They had not learned his name.

A certain air of mystery enveloped him. When he stepped out on the
stones with his long hair, his bent back, and his dingy blanket capote
he looked like a mediaeval grotesque--yet he had a dignity of his own,
too.

"How?" he said, extending his hand.

Sam, dreading the inevitable questions, received him a little
nervously.

"Glad to see you. Sit down by the fire. You travel late."

"I old," observed Musq'oosis calmly. "I go when men sleep."

He made himself comfortable by the fire. To Sam's thankfulness he did
not appear to notice the white man's impoverished condition. He had
excellent manners.

"Are you going far?" asked Sam.

The old man shrugged. "Jus' up and down," he replied. "I lak look
about."

He drew out his pipe. To save himself Sam could not help glancing
enviously toward it.

"You got no pipe?" asked the Indian.

"Lost it," admitted Sam ruefully.

"I got 'not'er pipe," said Musq'oosis. From the "fire-bag" hanging
from his waist he produced a red-clay bowl such as the natives use,
and a bundle of new reed stems. He fitted a reed to the bowl, and
passed it to Sam. A bag of tobacco followed.

"A gift," he stated courteously.

"I say," objected Sam, blushing, "I haven't anything to giv