Before the end of Steve’s first year in his wilderness retreat he had become as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthian recesses as the oldest guides in the region.  Not a portage, not a short cut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for a canoe to float in that he did not know.  He had spent all his days and many of his nights in these solitary wanderings.  Visitors to the region grew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some dark and shaded stream-bed.  On the approach of strangers he would instantly away, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats he passed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beings than of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water.  He was not a handsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all looked twice,—­men as well as women.  It was an unfathomable look,—­partly of pain, partly of antagonism.  His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would pierce beyond it.

“What a strange face!” was a common ejaculation on the part of those thus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance.  More than once efforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form his acquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled.  Finally he came to be spoken of as the “hermit;” and it was with astonishment, almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in the Adirondacks, he was found at “Paul Smith’s” offering his services as guide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenly ill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again through the lakes.

Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation and solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, no one knew, and he did not say.  But once having entered on the life of a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the region.  It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he avoided taking parties in which there were ladies.  Sometimes for a whole season it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of such a party.  Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for him to assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing members of the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat some other guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all the profits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days.  During these absences it was often said, “Steve’s gone to see his wife,” or, “Off with that Indian wife o’ his up North;” and these vague, idle, gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which no one could either trace or gainsay.