o 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:

"And now, I ought to go outside and see if I can discover any trace of
my companions, who must be awfully cut up over my disappearance. But
don't be uneasy, Mr. Balfour, I shan't go far, and whether I find them
or not I shall certainly come back to stay just as long as you need me.
I hope you will sleep while I am gone, and I wish you would promise not
to leave your bed, or move more than is absolutely necessary, before my
return."

When Cabot first stepped outside the shelter that had proved such a
haven of safety to him, he was dazzled by the brilliancy of the day.
After becoming somewhat accustomed to the glare of sunlight on
new-fallen snow, he turned to see what sort of a house he had just
left. To his surprise there was no house; the only suggestion of one
being two windows and a door set in a wall of rock that was built at
the base of a cliff.

"It is a cavern," thought Cabot, "and that is the reason the room is so
easily kept warm. Mighty good thing to have in this country,
especially when it is lined with furs."

The snow lay unbroken, and there was no sign of the trail he had made
the night before. For a short distance, however, he could go in but
one direction, for the only way out was through the narrow defile by
which he had entered. At its mouth he found the wire over which he had
fallen, and thereby given notice of his approach by causing