ack in the shade he said
in a tone of lofty command:

"Little Beaver, I want to be amused. Come hyar. Tell me a story."

"How would you like a lesson in Tutnee?" was the Second Chief's
reply, but he had tried this before, and he found neither Sam nor Guy
inclined to take any interest in the very dead language.

"Tell me a story, I said," was the savage answer of the scowling and
ferocious Woodpecker.

"All right," said Little Beaver. "I'll tell you a story of such a fine
boy--oh, he was the noblest little hero that ever wore pantaloons or
got spanked in school. Well, this boy went to live in the woods, and
he wanted to get acquainted with all the living wild things. He found
lots of difficulties and no one to help him, but he kept on and
on--oh! he was so noble and brave--and made notes, and when he learned
anything new he froze on to it like grim death. By and by he got a
book that was some help, but not much. It told about some of the birds
as if you had them _in your hand_. But this heroic youth only saw
them at a distance and he was stuck. One day he saw a wild Duck on a
pond so far away he could only see some spots of colour, but he made
a sketch of it, and later he found out from that rough sketch that it
was a Whistler, and then this wonderful boy had an idea. All the
Ducks are different; all have little blots and streaks that are their
labels, or like the uniforms of soldiers. 'Now, if I can put their
uniforms down on paper I'll know the Ducks as soon as I see them on a
pond a long way off.' So he set to work and drew what he could
find. One of his friends had a stuffed Wood-duck, so the
'Boy-that-wanted-to-know' drew that from a long way off. He got
another from an engraving and two more from the window of a
taxidermist shop. But he knew perfectly well that there are twenty or
thirty different kinds of Ducks, for he often saw others at a distance
and made far-sketches, hoping some day he'd find out what they were.
Well, one day the 'Boy-that-wanted-to-know' sketched a new Duck on a
pond, and he saw it again and again, but couldn't find out what it
was, and there was his b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l sketch, but no one to tell
him its name, so when he saw that he just had to go into the teepee
and steal the First War Chief's last apple and eat it to hide his
emotion."

Here Yan produced an apple and began to eat it with an air of sadness.

Without changing a muscle, the Great Woodpecker continued the tale:

"Then w