With a little cry Rod darted between his companions.

He threw off his cap and lifted his white face to the startled creature on the rock, and as he advanced step by step, reaching out his hands in friendship, he called softly a name: "John Ball, John Ball, John Ball!" In an instant the mad hunter had straightened himself, half turned to flee.
"John Ball! Hello, John Ball--John Ball--" In his earnestness Rod was almost sobbing the name.

He forgot everything now, everything but that lonely figure on the rock, and he drew nearer and nearer, gently calling the name, until the mad hunter dropped on his knees and, crumpled in his long beard and gray lynx skin, looked down upon Rod and sent back a low moaning, answering cry.
"John Ball! John Ball, is that you ?" Rod stopped, with the madman forty feet above him, and something seemed choking back the very breath in him when he saw the strange look that had come into the old man's eyes.
"John Ball--" The wild eyes above shifted for a moment.

They caught a glimpse of two heads thrust from the door of the old cabin, and the madman sprang to his feet.

For a breath he stood on the edge of the rock, then with a cry he leaped with the fierce agility of an animal far out into the swirl of the cataract! For an instant he was visible in the downward plunge of the water.