“Perhaps the rest of us have never heard it in full,” said Grant. “I’m right sure I haven’t.” It immediately became apparent that Granger was fully as ready to tell this story as he had been to relate the Indian legend. “In midwinter some ten years ago,” he began, “it was reported that there was an old man living on Spirit Island. First his smoke was seen rising from the island, and then some men who came here to fish through the ice saw the recluse himself. Their curiosity aroused by the sight of the smoke, they approached the island. But when they drew near a bearded, bare-headed man in tattered garments appeared on the shore with a gun in his hands and a growling dog at his heels, and ordered them away. They attempted to talk with him, but, save to warn them of personal violence if they persisted in intruding, he would make no conversation. All that winter he remained on the island, seen at rare intervals, though the ringing of his axe and the report of his gun were sometimes heard. Naturally, people wondered who the stranger could be, and when the spring fishing came on some sportsmen made a second attempt to land on the island. “Again the hermit made his appearance with the vicious looking dog as his companion, and warned them to keep off. They attempted to parley with him, but the effort was discouraged, as that of the winter fishermen had been. “For almost five years Old Lonely, as he was dubbed for want of another name, lived there with his dog on Spirit Island. Two or three times a year, silent and unapproachable, he appeared in Pemstock and bought certain absolutely necessary essentials of life that could be obtained in no other manner. Clothing, ammunition for his gun, fishing tackle, a little hardware and a few simple cooking utensils, together with salt, sugar, coffee, flour and tobacco made up, in the main, all of his purchases, which were paid for with spot cash. Where he got it no one could surmise, but the hermit always seemed to have enough money in his pocket to pay for what he bought. He engaged a man regularly to deliver the stuff at the foot of the lake, where Old Lonely received it, loaded it into his crude flat-bottomed boat and rowed away. “Upon every occasion when seen he was accompanied by his dog, a snarling, tooth-threatening creature, who seemed even less friendly toward human beings in general than did his master. There were fake stories and surmises afloat concerning the hermit of Spirit Island, but none of these hints or tales when followed up seemed to have any real foundation of truth. All were apparently the figments of some speculative or imaginative mind.” At this point Piper smothered a cough, but the narrator did not even glance in Sleuth’s direction. Absorbed in the story he was relating, he continued without a break.