g the best thing he
could do in this dazed condition would be to go back under the shelter
of his little tent, he turned to do so, but found it an impossibility.
The thunderbolt that had stunned him had struck the large birch tree,
and so shattered it to pieces that, as it fell, it had crushed down the
little wigwam into a helpless wreck.

Great indeed was the disappointment and vexation of Oowikapun, who,
while vainly imagining that at length he was about to hear the soothing
voice of nature to comfort and bless him, got from her such a crack that
he was knocked senseless, and, in addition, had his dwelling place
completely wrecked. Groping round in the ruins, he succeeded in finding
his blanket, which he threw over his shoulders as a slight protection
against the heavy rain, which continued falling all night.

Oowikapun still lingered in his lonely forest retreat. His pride
revolted at the idea of having to return to the village and confess that
all his efforts had been in vain and that only defeat and humiliation
had been his lot.

So a new wigwam was built in a more sheltered place amid the dark
evergreen trees. His depression of spirit was such that for a long time
he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his
necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally
in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the
brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial
to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell
upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows
where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds among the trees, the
melancholy hootings of the owls, or the distant howlings of the wolves,
he passed many weary hours.

The psalmist, with adoring love, could say: "Day unto day uttereth
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge," but to Oowikapun
neither the "speech" of the day nor the "knowledge" of the night gave
any responsive answer to his heart's longings or led him any nearer to
the source of soul comfort. And yet nature spoke to him as grandly as
it was possible for her to utter her voice, and her last effort was of
the sublimest character and such as but few mortals are permitted to
witness.

It came to Oowikapun one night when he had aimlessly wandered far out
from the shadows of the forest gloom, to a spot where the canopy of
heaven, bright with its multitudes of st