"Then he went out of the hut and came back after a while with a forest of balsam boughs. He made me a bough bed in one corner of the room, spread a blanket over it and laid me on it. After that he rummaged around the place and fished out an iron kettle from a heap of stuff in a corner. Then he took it and went out of the shack, and I heard him lock the door after him. He was gone a long time, several hours, I presume. When he returned he hunted up a battered tin dish and went out again. Pretty soon he came back with part of a cooked rabbit and some broth. And I was glad to get it.
"Matters ran along in about that way for some days. I tried at first to keep track of them, but I was in so much pain that I soon lost count. It wasn't physical pain alone, either. I went almost crazy myself wondering what Grace and Aunt Rose would think at not hearing from me. I knew that as soon as they realized that I had disappeared, they would send some one to find me. I hadn't the least idea of where I was. I still supposed that I wasn't far from the lumber camp and expected any moment to see a search party descend on the hut. I soon found that I couldn't expect any help from my host. He was crazy as a loon and besides he had a fixed idea that I was a son of his who had evidently been supposed to be dead for several years and had now come to life again in the woods. I tried once to explain to him that I wasn't his son, but it made him so angry that I was afraid to say anything more about it for fear he'd finish me. He wouldn't talk much. When he did say anything it was absolutely without sense. But he'd sit on the floor beside my bed by the hour, and stare at me out of his wild black eyes. He was good to me, though. He fed me and took care of me in a way that surprised me.
"Twice he left me for a whole day and a night. When he came back he brought a lot of provisions with him. He had quite a bit of money in notes in the shack. He kept it in a box under a board in the floor and almost every day he'd go there to look at it. He never counted it. He'd lift the board, haul out the box, pat the roll of bills, croon over it, and stuff it back again. One thing kept me thinking we were near to the camp was the provisions he brought in. How he managed to get them without getting himself locked up was a mystery to me.
"As my leg began to get better, he began to grow less careful of me. Knowing that I couldn't possibly get away, he would set food and water beside my bed, lock me in the cabin—he never failed to do that—and go away for three or four days at a stretch, sometimes longer. Often I used to be faint with hunger before he'd come back. On one of those jaunts somebody must have seen him, for he came tearing into the hut late one night saying, 'I am afraid they saw me! I hid in the woods until dark for fear they would follow me. They must not see me nor find out where I live. If they do, they will try to take you away again and then tell me you are dead. They would not believe that you have come to life again. If they ever come I will kill them.'
"After that he stayed in or near the shack for days. He was so upset for fear someone would find me that instead of going around as usual without saying much, he would talk all the time. He was cunning enough not to talk loudly, though. He had a glimmer of sense even if he was crazy, for he kept his voice down to a mutter. I dare say my broken leg would have healed a good deal faster, if he had gone on giving me as good care as he gave me at first. He wasn't anxious for me to get well. He used to say, 'When you can walk again, you will have to stay shut up just the same. If you go into the woods, they will see you and take you away.'
"Privately I made up my mind that as soon as I was well enough I wouldn't wait for 'them' to 'take me away'; I'd go of my own accord. But I had to be careful. As I've already told you he was a giant. He was at least six feet three and strong as a gorilla. I often used to wonder who he was and all about him. One day, about a week before you came, I thought I'd try my damaged leg to see if I could use it. He was off on one of his jaunts or I wouldn't have dared to try it. I found I could hobble about a little and just for curiosity I lifted up the board in the floor, not because I wanted to count his money, but to see what else he kept in the little old-fashioned box he always took it from. All I found besides the money was a battered photograph of a little boy. On the back of it was written in a round, childish hand: 'To my father. You little son, Wallace Lindsey, twelve years old.' I suppose it must have been——"
Old Jean interrupted Tom's recital with a sudden ringing cry of, "It is the wil' man! He hav' the name Lindsey. You remember, M'sieu' David, I hav' tell you 'bout him!" In his excitement Jean leaped from the log, Tom and David viewing him in amazement. "But w'en I hav' see his son, he big man lak' his father."
"What do you know of him, Jean!" Tom's question was freighted with eagerness. "It's evident you must know something."
"Do you mean, Jean, that you think this fellow is the one you were telling me of?" demanded David skeptically.
"It is the sam'," almost shouted the hunter. "I hav' know the name when I hear it, but never could I remember. But I think he dead long time, because after his son who he hav' love much get kill by tree, he turn to wil' man an' run 'way to Canada, an' no one know after where he hav' gone. Of a truth we hav' done well not to meet him. No wonder you say 'urry an' get away, M'sieu' Tom."