It was a whistle, and it had such a penetrating quality that Will, at first, thought it was a bird. Then he knew it sprang from the throat of a man, hidden by the bushes and coming up the pass. Nearer and nearer it came and mellower and mellower it grew. He had never before heard anyone whistle so beautifully. It was like a song, but it was evident that someone was entering their happy valley, and in that wilderness who could come but an enemy? Nearer and nearer the whistler drew and the musical note of the whistling and its echoes filled all the pass. "Wouldn't it be better for us to draw back a little where we can remain hidden among the brakes?" said Will. "Yes, do it," replied the hunter, "just for precaution against any possible mistake, but I don't think we really need to do so. In all the world there's not another such whistler! It's bound to be Giant Tom, Giant Tom his very self, and none other!" "Giant Tom! Giant Tom! Whom do you mean?" exclaimed Will. "Just wait a minute and you'll see." The whistler was now very near, though hidden from sight by the bushes, and he was trilling forth old airs of home that made the pulses in the lad's throat beat hard. "It's Giant Tom. There's no other such in the world," repeated Boyd more to himself than to Will. "In another minute you'll see him. You can hear him now brushing past the bushes. Ah, there he is! God bless him!" The figure of an extraordinary man now came into view. He was not more than five feet tall, nor was he particularly broad for his height. He was just the opposite of a giant in size, but there was something about him that suggested the power of a giant. He had a wonderfully quick and light step, and it was Will's first impression that he was made of steel, instead of flesh and blood. His face, shaven smoothly, told little of his age. He was dressed in weather-beaten brown, rifle on shoulder, and two mules, loaded with the usual packs and miner's tools, followed him in single file and with sure step. Will's heart warmed at once to the little man who continued to whistle forth a volume of clear song, and whose face was perhaps the happiest he had ever seen. Boyd stepped suddenly from the shielding brushwood and extended his hand. "Tom Bent," he said, "put 'er there!" "Thar she is," said Giant Tom, placing his palm squarely in Boyd's. "My young friend, Mr. William Clarke," said the hunter, nodding at the lad, "and this is Mr. Thomas Bent, better known to me and others as Giant Tom." "Glad to meet you, William," said the little man, and ever afterward he called the boy William. "Anybody that I find with Jim, here, has got on 'im the stamp an' seal o' high approval. I don't ask your name, whar you come from or why you're here, or whar you're goin', but I take you fur a frien' o' Jim's, an' so just 'bout all right. Now put 'er thar."