The spectacle gripped at Rod's soul.

A hot film came into his eyes and there was an odd little tremble in his throat.
The Indians were looking with dark, staring eyes.

To them this was another unusual incident of the wilderness.

But to Rod it was the white man's soul crying out to his own.

The old man's outstretched arms seemed reaching to him, the sobbing voice, filled with its pathos, its despair, its hopeless loneliness, seemed a supplication for him to come forth, to reach up his own arms, to respond to this lost soul of the solitudes.