Then one day when I had almost given up finding it, and had been a long time in the woods without thinking about it, I found myself walking in the glade again, and the first thing I noticed was that the faggot was gone. Although I had been so sure of its being a faggot in the first place, I was a little startled at missing it, but not in the least alarmed. The day was full of the warm dry fog that goes before a rain; it cleared the ground and curled midway of the tall, fluted trees like altar smoke. I followed along the track, which ran narrowly between the redwood boles toward an open space, at the back of which was the pool of a spring. It gleamed under a leaning bay tree, silver tipped with light. And there beside it was a man who so matched with the color of the dappled earth that, except for the motions of his singular employment, I might have missed seeing him altogether. He was of a long clean shape, dressed as to the upper part of his body in a close-fitting coat of gray mole-skin. His feet were covered with sandals. Long bands of leather and of a green cloth, coarse like linen, were laced about, midway of his thighs. His coat had been loosened at the shoulders, baring his breast and arms, and as he lay on the bank of the pool, he leaned above it and studied the reflection of his face. He had leaves of some strange herb in his hand which he squeezed together, and having dipped it in the water rubbed upon his face and hair, watching the effect in the pool. It was his hair that caught my attention most, for it was thick and waving, and most singularly streaked with white. That was the more strange because the body of him looked lithe and young. It occurred to me that he might be remedying an offensive grayness as he dipped and rubbed and stooped to mirror himself the better in the bright water. But before I had made up my mind to anything further, he turned and saw me. The first thing he did was to thrust the hand that held the herb straight down into the water with a deliberate movement—all the while holding my gaze with great fixity of purpose, as though he would not so much as let it question what he did. Presently withdrawing the hand empty, he stood up.