the night.

The rain ceased the next day but the air became crisp and cold, and
autumn was fully come. In a week the forest was dyed into the most
glowing colors, red and yellow and brown, and the shades between. The
heavens were pure blue and gold, and it was a poignant delight to
breathe the keen air. Again he ranged far and rejoiced in the hunting.
His infallible rifle never missed, and in the little hut in the marsh
the stock of furs and skins grew so fast that scarcely room for himself
was left. He hid a fresh store at another place in the forest, and then
he returned to Wareville for a day. His father greeted him with some
constraint, not with coldness exactly, but with lack of understanding.
His mother and his sister wept with joy and Mrs. Ware said: "I was
expecting you about this time and you have not disappointed me."

He stayed two days and his keen eyes, so observant of material matters,
noted that the colony was not doing well for the time, the drought
having almost ruined the crops and there was full promise of scanty food
and a hard winter. Now came his opportunity. He had looked upon his
month in the forest as in part a holiday, and he never intended to throw
aside all responsibility for others, roving the wilderness absolutely
free from care. He knew that he would have work to do, he felt that he
should have it, and now he saw the way to do the kind of work that he
loved to do.

He replenished his supply of ammunition, took up his rifle again and
returned to the forest. Now he used all his surpassing knowledge and
skill in the chase, and game began to pour into the colony, bear, deer,
buffalo and the smaller animals, until he alone seemed able to feed the
entire settlement through the winter.

He experienced a new thrill keener and more delightful than any that had
gone before; he was doing for others and the knowledge was most
pleasant. Winter came on, fierce and unyielding with almost continuous
snow and ice, and Henry Ware was the chief support of that little
village in the wilderness. The game wandering with its fancy, or perhaps
taking alarm at the new settlement had drifted far, and he alone of all
the hunters could find it. The voices that had been raised against him a
second time were stilled again, because no one dared to accuse when his
single figure stood between them and starvation.

He took Paul Cotter with him on some of his hunts, but never even to
Paul did he tell the secret of his