een covered.

Even though he was an Indian boy, his heart thumped with fear, when at
the end of the day he returned from his hunt on the marsh to a deserted
camp. No answer came to his long shrill call. The sun was setting, and it
was of no use to follow the trail that night, even though he had known
just where his people were to go.

He munched some scraps that had been left behind and sought the shelter
of a hollow oak which had been the playhouse of the Indian girls and
boys. An old owl hooted and flew from a hole above, but Nonowit had no
fear of him, though he was glad the hole by which he had crawled into the
oak was far above the ground. This was some protection from the wolves,
which he could even then hear howling in the distance.

All night there was a beating rain, which washed away the last trace of
the carefully hidden trail of the Indian travelers. When Nonowit crawled
out into the sunshine the following morning, he could learn nothing of
their direction. To get a wider view, he wandered through the thick
forest to the river's edge, but there discovered no signs of his people.
"There are so many children in the camp I might not be missed," he
thought and dropped upon a rock in one little heap of loneliness.

Suddenly he sat very straight, for there beyond the Narrows he saw a
monstrous thing. Could it be a huge bird with white wings spread? Over
the water it seemed to be coming nearer. Instinctively he slid into a
crevice between the rocks, yet without moving his gaze. Through the
Narrows, under full sail, came the first ship. Nonowit seemed to become a
part of the brown earth as he wriggled back into the undergrowth, never
moving his wide-open eyes from this strange sight.

Then came the rattle of chains and the voices of men. A boat was lowered,
and Nonowit, safe under the cover of the low branches, saw it headed for
his shore. Men with white skin and hair growing on their faces landed on
the very rock on which he had been sitting. Their clothes were unlike any
he had ever seen before, and their speech could not be understood.
Cautiously he backed into the forest until he gained the branches of the
oak in which he had slept. Yet that was unsafe, for the white men looked
up into every tree, breaking the branches and tasting the sap.

In his fright, Nonowit wriggled for safety through the very hole from
which the owl had flown the night before. There from the dark hollows he
watched the white men as t