he beaver. Four powerful fellows were floating
a log in the water, ready to put it into place, and others on the bank
were launching another.

It was one of the largest beaver colonies he had ever seen, and he
watched it with peculiar enjoyment. He killed the beaver now and
then--the cap upon his head was made of its skin--but only when it was
needful. The industrious animals were safe from his rifle now, and he
felt that his wilderness had no more useful people.

He looked at them a long time, merely for the pleasure of looking. They
showed so much skill, so much quickness and judgment that he was willing
to see and learn from them. He felt, in a sense, that they were
comrades. He wished them well in their work, and he knew that they would
have snug houses, when the next winter came.

He left them in their peace, returned to the brow of the hill, and then
walked slowly down the other side. He heard a woof, a sound of
scrambling, and a black bear, big in frame, but yet lean from the
winter, ran from its lair in the bushes, stopped a moment at fifty or
sixty yards to look hard at him, and then, wheeling again in frightened
flight disappeared among the trees. Henry once more laughed silently. He
would not have harmed the bear either.

A puffing, panting sound attracted his attention, and, walking farther
on, he looked into a glade, in which the grass grew high and thick. He
had known from the character of the noise that he would find buffaloes
there, and they numbered about a dozen, grazing a while, and then
breathing heavily in content. He had seen them in countless herds on the
western plains, when he was with Black Cloud and his tribe, but south of
the Ohio, owing to the heavy forest, they were found only in small
groups, although they were plentiful.

The wind was blowing toward him, and standing partially behind a huge
oak he watched them. They were the finest and largest inhabitants of his
wilderness, splendid creatures, with their leonine manes and huge
shoulders, beasts of which any monarch might be proud. He could easily
bring down any one of them that he wanted with his rifle, but they were
safe from all bullets of his.

He looked at them a while, as a man would gaze at a favorite horse.
There was a calf among them, and whenever it wandered from the middle of
the glade toward the edge of the forest the mother would push it back.
Henry, studying the woods there, saw just within their shadow the long
slinki