[Illustration: "My name is Watson Balfour.">[
"Of London?" queried Cabot.
The man nodded.
"Is it possible that you can be Watson Balfour, the celebrated English electrician, who is supposed to have been lost at sea some years ago?"
Again the man smiled and made a sign of assent.
For a moment Cabot stared, well nigh speechless with the wonder and excitement of this discovery. Then he broke into a torrent of exclamations and questions.
"Why, Mr. Balfour, I know you so well by reputation that you seem like an old friend. Your 'Handbook of Electricity' and your 'Comparative Voltage' are text books at the Institute. The whole scientific world mourned your supposed death. But how do you happen to be up here, and how have you managed to establish an electric plant in this wilderness? Why are you masquerading as a man-wolf? How did you lose the power of speech? How did you become so severely wounded? Can't you tell me some of these things?"
For answer Mr. Balfour wrote: "Perhaps, some time. Tell first how you came here."
So Cabot, forced to curb for the present his own overpowering curiosity, sat down and told of all that had happened since the departure of the man-wolf from Locked Harbour. When he had finished he said: