e could not recall another such gratifying night,
one in which he had served his own people and also had annoyed the enemy
beyond endurance.

He went deep into the forest, hiding his trail as usual, and lay down in
a covert to rest, while he ate some of the venison that he had left.
Here he saw again his friends of the little trails, with which he was so
familiar. The shy rabbits were creeping through the bushes and
instinctively they seemed to have no fear of him. Two little birds not
ten feet over his head were singing in intense rivalry. Their tiny
throats swelled out as they poured forth a brilliant volume of song, and
Henry, lying perfectly still, looked up at them and admired them. It
would have required keen eyes like his to have picked them out, each of
whom a green leaf would have covered, but he saw them and recognized
them as friends of his. He did not know them personally, but since all
their tribe were his comrades they must be so too.

Although he was one of mighty prowess with the rifle, and a taker of
game, Henry always felt his kinship with the little people of the
forest. No one of them ever fell wantonly at his hands. The gay birds in
their red or blue plumage and all the soberer garbs between, were safe
from him. It seemed that they too at times recognized him as a friend
since he would hear the flutter of tiny wings over his head or by his
ear, and see them pass in a flash of flame, or of blue or of brown.

Those old tales of Paul floated once more through his mind. He had no
doubt that Paul was right. The Biblical six thousand years might be six
million years as men thought of them now. And he knew himself, from his
own eye, that huge monsters, larger than any that lived now, did roam
the earth once. He had seen their bones in hundreds at the Big Bone
Lick, where they had come to get the salty water scores of thousands of
years ago. It seemed to him then that in those days men and the little
animals and the little birds must have been allies against the monsters.
Here, in the woods so far from civilization, this friendship must be
continued. The light wind which so often sang to him through the leaves
sprang up and joined its note to that of the birds. The fierce, wild
spirit that had made him haunt the flying trail the night before, and
that had sent the tomahawk so deep, departed. He felt singularly
friendly to all created beings.

Lying on his back and looking upward into the green roof, Henr