I worked until twelve, when I prepared luncheon, cleared up again, cut wood if I needed it, and started for town. I had timed myself and learned that it took me just forty minutes to walk the fourteen miles. I thus had ample time to go to the post-office, and usually reached Porcupine Hill a few minutes before the entertainment began.

It must have been two weeks later that, in the same section of the homeward trail, I again felt myself keenly observed. It was disquieting, more especially as I beat about among the bushes for a long time without finding anything. I meditated that night in two separate meditations of one hour each, but came to no conclusions.

By the pitiless light of high noon and the baldly truthful report of my grandmother’s cracked mirror, opportunely left in the cabin, I discovered that I was moulting at the top, and cast about for some means to remedy the condition, not caring to be a front row observer at the noble drama of Unnatural History. While in town that day, I purchased a small flask of whiskey, as I had seen in the beauty columns, more than once, that it was a good hair tonic, but I did not know whether to apply it internally or externally.

I attended the Porcupine race that afternoon, and lost forty-three cents on Salina Ann, who flunked miserably every time. Much depressed, I started homeward, just at sunset, and, in a quiet place, I attempted to improve my spirits by taking a teaspoonful of the hair tonic. I learned immediately that the remedy was not meant to be used internally, and I did not doubt that external application would produce a crop of tresses which might well be the envy of a professional musician.

A little nearer my cabin than before, I was once more conscious of the fact that I was not alone. Somewhat excited, I crept into the thicket and swung my knapsack about violently. I distinctly detected a strange odour, which was like nothing else on earth, but otherwise all was as usual except for an inexplicable breeze blowing directly against the wind.

Fancy an Indian blanket, of Angora wool, which has been used by three tribes indiscriminately, year in and year out, in sickness and in health, hanging on a clothes line with a high wind blowing. Let the wind be blowing from the east and the scientific observer be standing just west of the blanket. It will give you a faint idea of what I met in the thicket, though at the time I wrongly attributed it to the misapplication of the hair tonic.

On reaching my cabin I discovered that 

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