ything to make a living, but
in his hours of freedom he would keep a little kingdom of his own. The
road to it might lie through the cellar of a grocer's shop, but he
would not flinch. He would strive and struggle as a naturalist. When
he had won the insight he was seeking, the position he sought would
follow, for every event in the woodland life had shown him--had shown
them all, that his was the kingdom of the Birds and Beasts and the
power to comprehend them.

And he seemed to float, happy in the fading of all doubt, glad in
the sense of victory. There was a noise outside. The teepee door was
forced gently; a large animal entered. At another time Yan might
have been alarmed, but the uplift of his vision was on him still. He
watched it with curious unalarm. It gently came to his bed, licked his
hand and laid down beside him. It was old Turk, and this was the first
time he had heeded any of them but Caleb.

[Illustration: Old Turk]

XXXII

The New War Chief

Caleb had been very busy all the day before doing no one knew what,
and Saryann was busy, too. She had been very busy for long, but now
she was bustling. Then, it seems, Caleb had gone to Mrs. Raften, and
she was very busy, and Guy made a flying visit to Mrs. Burns, and
she had become busy. Thus they turned the whole neighbourhood into a
"bee."

For this was Sanger, where small gatherings held the same place as the
club, theatre and newspaper do in the lives of city folk. No matter
what the occasion, a christening, wedding or funeral, a logging, a
threshing, a home-coming or a parting, the finishing of a new house
or the buying of a new harness or fanning-mill, any one of these was
ample grounds for one of their "talking bees"; so it was easy to set
the wheels a-running.

At three o'clock three processions might have been seen wending
through the woods. One was from Burns's, including the whole family;
one from Raften's, comprising the family and the hired men; one from
Caleb's, made up of Saryann and many of the Boyles. All brought
baskets.

They were seated in a circle on the pleasant grassy bank of the
pond. Caleb and Sam took charge of the ceremonies. First, there were
foot-races, in which Yan won in spite of his wounded arm, the city boy
making a good second; then target-shooting and "Deer-hunting," that
Yan could not take part in. It was not in the programme, but Raften
insisted on seeing Yan measure the height of a knot in a tree without