Again the hidden head shot forth from its concealment.  A sudden turn and Captain Plum would certainly have been startled.  For it was a weird object, this spying head; its face dead-white against the dense green of the verdure, with shocks of long white hair hanging down on each side, framing between them a pair of eyes that gleamed from cavernous sockets, like black glowing beads.  There was unmistakable fear, a tense anxiety in those glittering eyes as Captain Plum walked toward the paper, but when he paused and stretched himself, the sole of his boot carelessly trampling the discarded letter, the head disappeared again and there came another satisfied bird-like chuckle from the gloom of the thicket.

Captain Plum now put on his coat, buttoned it close to conceal the weapons in his belt, and walked along the narrow water-run that crept like a white ribbon between the lake and the island wilderness.  No sooner had he disappeared than the bushes and vines behind the rock were torn asunder and a man wormed his way through them.  For an instant he paused, listening for returning footsteps, and then with startling agility darted to the beach and seized the crumpled letter.

The person who for the greater part of the afternoon had been spying upon Captain Plum from the security of the thicket was to all appearances a very small and a very old man, though there was something about him that seemed to belie a first guess at his age.  His face was emaciated; his hair was white and hung in straggling masses on his shoulders; his hooked nose bore apparently the infallible stamp of extreme age.  Yet there was a strange and uncanny strength and quickness in his movements.  There was no stoop to his shoulders.  His head was set squarely.  His eyes were as keen as steel.  It would have been impossible to have told whether he was fifty or seventy.  Eagerly he smoothed out the abused missive and evidently succeeded even in the failing light, in deciphering much of it, for the glimmer of a smile flashed over his thin features as he thrust the paper into his pocket.

Without a moment’s hesitation he set out on the trail of Captain Plum.  A quarter of a mile down the path he overtook the object of his pursuit.

“Ah, how do you do, sir?” he greeted as the younger man turned about upon hearing his approach.  “A mighty fast pace you’re setting for an old man, sir!” He broke into a laugh that was not altogether unpleasant, and boldly held out a hand.  “We’ve been expecting you, but—­not in this way.  I hope there’s nothing wrong?”

Captain Plum had accepted the proffered hand.  Its coldness and the singular appearance of the old man who had come like an apparition chilled him.  In a moment, however, it occurred to him that he was a victim of mistaken identity.  As far as he knew there was no one on Beaver Island who was expecting him.  To the best of his knowledge he was a fool for being there.  His crew aboard the sloop had agreed upon that point with extreme vehemence and, to a man, had attempted to dissuade him from the mad project upon which he was launching himself among the Mormons in their island stronghold.  All this came to him while the little old man was looking up into his face, chuckling, and shaking his hand as if he were one of the most important and most greatly to be desired personages in the world.