ago?"

Frank explained that he had been singing, and the stranger said:

"I don't know why I should wish to take a look at you, for you caused me
more misery than I have known for a year."

"Thot's a compliment fer ye're singing, Frankie!" chuckled Barney.

"I tried not to listen," said the stranger; "but I could not tear myself
away. What right has a man without a home to listen to songs that fill
his soul with memories of home and little ones!"

He bowed his face on his hands, and his body shook a bit, betraying that
he was struggling to suppress his emotions.

After a moment, Old Rocks said:

"I reckons I knows yer now. You're the hermit."

The man did not stir or speak.

"Ain't yer the hermit?" asked the guide.

"Yes," was the bitter reply, "I am a man without a home or a name. Some
have said that there is trouble with my brain, but they are wrong. I am
not deranged. This is the first time in a year that I have sought the
society of human beings, unless it was to trade for such things as I
need to sustain life. It was those songs that brought me here. They
seemed to act like a magnet, and I could not keep away."

Then he turned to Frank, and asked him to sing one of the lullabys over
again.

For all of his peculiar manner, the man seemed sane enough, and the boy
decided to humor him.

Frank sang, and the man sat and listened, his face still bowed on his
hands. When the song was ended, and the last echo had died out along a
distant line of bluffs, the man still sat thus.

Those who saw him were impressed. Beyond a doubt, this man had suffered
some great affliction that had caused him to shun his fellows and become
one "without a home or a name."

All at once, with a deep sigh, he rose. He was finely built, and,
properly dressed and shaved, he must have been handsome.

"Thank you," he said, addressing Frank. "I will not trouble you longer.
I am going now."

"Look yar," broke in Old Rocks, in his harsh way; "I wants ter warn you
ag'in comin' round yere ther way you done a short time ago. It ain't
healthy none whatever."

"What do you mean?"

"Jest this: I might take a fancy ter shoot fust an' talk it over
arterward. I don't want ter shoot yer."

A strange, sad smile came to the man's face.

"You need not fear," he said. "If you were to shoot at me, you would not
hit me."

The guide gave a snort.

"Whut's thet?" he cried. "I allow you hain't seen me shoot any to speak
of, pard. I ain't in