I had recognised the body, and the face was my own! . . .

It was bright daylight when a man’s voice recalled me to consciousness.  I was lying where I had fallen, and the farmer was standing in the room with the loaves of bread in his hands.  The horror of the night was still in my heart, and as the bluff settler helped me to my feet and picked up the rifle which had fallen with me, with many questions and expressions of condolence, I imagine my brief replies were neither self-explanatory nor even intelligible.

That day, after a thorough and fruitless search of the house, I left the island, and went over to spend my last ten days with the farmer; and when the time came for me to leave, the necessary reading had been accomplished, and my nerves had completely recovered their balance.

On the day of my departure the farmer started early in his big boat with my belongings to row to the point, twelve miles distant, where a little steamer ran twice a week for the accommodation of hunters.  Late in the afternoon I went off in another direction in my canoe, wishing to see the island once again, where I had been the victim of so strange an experience.

In due course I arrived there, and made a tour of the island.  I also made a search of the little house, and it was not without a curious sensation in my heart that I entered the little upstairs bedroom.  There seemed nothing unusual.

Just after I re-embarked, I saw a canoe gliding ahead of me around the curve of the island.  A canoe was an unusual sight at this time of the year, and this one seemed to have sprung from nowhere.  Altering my course a little, I watched it disappear around the next projecting point of rock.  It had high curving bows, and there were two Indians in it.  I lingered with some excitement, to see if it would appear again round the other side of the island; and in less than five minutes it came into view.  There were less than two hundred yards between us, and the Indians, sitting on their haunches, were paddling swiftly in my direction.

I never paddled faster in my life than I did in those next few minutes.  When I turned to look again, the Indians had altered their course, and were again circling the island.

The sun was sinking behind the forests on the mainland, and the crimson-coloured clouds of sunset were reflected in the waters of the lake, when I looked round for the last time, and saw the big bark canoe and its two dusky occupants still going round the island.  Then the shadows deepened rapidly; the lake grew black, and the night wind blew its first breath in my face as I turned a corner, and a projecting bluff of rock hid from my view both island and canoe.

A CASE OF EAVESDROPPING