an, rediscovered for the past
and present generation the wonderful Adirondack
Woods. We are grateful to Mr. Archibald Rutledge
for having shortened the story, and to Mr.
Murray's publishers, De Wolfe and Fiske Company,
for permission to print it in the abbreviated
form._--THE EDITOR.

IT was near the close of a sultry day in midsummer, which I had spent in
exploring a part of the shore line of the lake where I was camping, and
wearied with the trip I had made, I was returning toward the camp.

The lake was a very secluded sheet of water hidden away between the
mountains, not marked on the map, whose very existence was unsuspected
by me until I had a few days before accidentally stumbled upon it.
Indeed, in all the world there is hardly another sheet of water so
likely to escape the eye, not only of the tourist and the sportsman, but
also of the hunter and the trapper. Day by day as I paddled over the
lake or explored its shores the conviction grew upon me that the place
had never before been visited by any human being. The more I examined
and explored, the more this belief grew upon me. The thought was ever
with me. But on this afternoon as I was paddling leisurely along, my
paddle struck some curious object in the water. I reached down and
lifted it into the boat. It was a Keg!

Amazed, I sat looking at this proof that my lake was not so unknown as I
had supposed it to be. Where had it come from? How did it get here? Who
brought it, and for what purpose? These and similar questions I put to
myself as I paddled onward toward my camp.

After having built my camp fire I seated myself with my back against a
pine; it was then that my gaze again fell on the Keg, which I had
brought up from the boat and had set on the ground across the fire from
me. I sat wondering where it had come from, and what had become of him
who must once have handled it. . . . It may be that I was awake; it may
be that I was asleep; but as I was thus looking steadily and curiously
at the Keg, it seemed to change its appearance. It was no longer a Keg:
it was a man! A queer little man he was, with strange little legs, and
the funniest little body, and the tiniest little face! Then, standing
bold upright, and looking at me with eyes that glistened like black
beads, the miraculous Keg-Man opened his mouth and began to talk!

"I desire to tell you my story," it said; "the story of the man