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He was a man of about forty, burned by the sun with thick, tawny locks and a pointed, russet beard, wearing a single garment of untanned skin that came midway of his arms and thighs. There were sandals on his feet and strips of leather bound about protected him to the knees. He was belted about the body with a curious implement that might have been a sling, and from his hand swung a brace or two of quail.

The singular part of this adventure was that while he stood there communicating in his strange wordless fashion with all the birds in the woods, I was not afraid. He was standing over me in such a manner that I could not have escaped him if I would. Really I had no thought of doing so, but sat looking as he looked at me, and not in the least afraid.

So occupied were we both with this mutual inspection that I did not quite know how nor from what quarter three men came out from among the trees and stood beside him. One of them was red and sturdy like the first, one was old, with a white beard curling back from his face like the surf from a rock, but exceedingly well built and with great heaps of gnarly muscles along his breast and arms. The third was the dark man I had seen washing his hair at the pool of the Leaning Bay.