the fact, we all knew that we were) gradually working
nearer to the place where Cinnamon had told us that man was. I knew what
was happening, but would not have mentioned it for worlds, lest if we
talked about it we should change our direction. And I wanted--yes, in
spite of his terrors--I wanted to see man just once. Also--I may as well
confess it--there were memories of what Cinnamon had said of that
wonderful burnt food.

Some ten or twelve days must have passed in this way, when one morning,
after we had been abroad for three or four hours, and the sun was just
getting up, we heard a noise such as we had never heard before. Chuck!
chuck! chuck! It came at regular intervals for a while, then stopped and
began again. What could it be? It was not the noise of a woodpecker, nor
that which a beaver makes with its tail. Chuck! chuck! chuck! It was not
the clucking of a grouse, though perhaps more like that than anything
else, but different, somehow, in quality. Chuck! chuck! chuck! I think
we all knew in our hearts that it had something to do with man.

The noise came from not far away, but the wind was blowing across us.
So we made a circle till it blew from the noise to us; and suddenly in
one whiff we all knew that it was man. I felt my skin crawling up my
spine, and I saw my father's nose go down into his chest, while the hair
on his neck and shoulders stood out as it only could do in moments of
intense excitement.

Slowly, very slowly, we moved towards the noise, until at last we were
so close that the smell grew almost overpowering. But still we could not
see him, because of the brushwood. Then we came to a fallen log and,
carefully and silently we stepped on to it--my father and mother first,
then I, then Kahwa. Now, by standing up on our hind-feet, our
heads--even mine and Kahwa's--were clear of the bushes, and there, not
fifty yards away from us, was man. He was chopping down a tree, and that
was the noise that we had heard. He did not see us, being too intent on
his work. Chuck! chuck! chuck! He was striking steadily at the tree with
what I now know was an axe, but which at the time we all supposed to be
a thunder-stick, and at each blow the splinters of wood flew just as
Cinnamon had told us. After a while he stopped, and stooped to pick
something off the ground. This hid him from my sight, and from Kahwa's
also, so she strained up on her tiptoes to get another look at him. In
doing so her feet slipped on th