ou think that Lone
Chief went wandering into the foothills all by chance, you are mistaken,
for he had a way of doing things quite his own. And his way was this: To
listen out for the news that is always passing through the wilderness
though it is never printed, nor do they shout it from the tops of the
trees. For if anything strange or dangerous has lately gone along the
trails, word of it goes abroad, and the wild creatures flash the message
to each other without a sound.

For a long time, Lone Chief did not get any news. Then one day, towards
sunset, he caught a thin strand of a message as it drifted through the
trees. Thin though it was, Lone Chief read it. It told him that
Something had happened lately--for all he knew, might be _still_
happening--along the secret trails.

For a long time after receiving the message. Lone Chief stood perfectly
still. His eyes and his ears were not the only parts of him working: he
used his nose, too, like the animals, in case the thing might have
spilled a little of itself into the wind. Yet though he looked and
listened and smelt, he got no certain information as to what the thing
was. He was now less than half-a-day's journey from Carboona, and might
reasonably be supposed to be within hail of some of its folk; but
darkness closed down before he could get sight or wind of them, and
because it was night, he lay down, sensibly, and went to sleep.

He was awake very early in the morning, at the hour when forest people
smell the dawn before they see it. For a time, he lay still flat on his
back, gazing up into the old darkness of the trees where the twilight
was beginning. That was his way of learning the things that come to you
if you do not walk about. And as he lay, it came to him clearer and
clearer that he was near the end of his journey. And out of sight, with
faint rustlings and fine foot-falls, the hunting-beasts came back along
the trails. Yet Lone Chief never moved. As he lay there, wrapped in his
elk-skin-robe, he might had been a log. And no eyes saw him, and only
one nose smelt him, and that belonged to Baltook, the silver fox.

Now Baltook's acquaintance with Dusty Star had taught him the human
smell. It had also taught him another thing: that things which smell
like that are not necessarily enemies, and may possibly be friends. So
instead of turning tail immediately, Baltook drew cautiously nearer, so
that his eyes might complete the information which had been given