being the case, it was fit
time for him to choose a camp and call his friends.

It pleased Tayoga, zealous of mind, to do all the work before the
others came, and, treading so lightly and delicately, that he would
not have alarmed a rabbit in the bush, he gathered together dead
sticks and heaped them in a little sunken place, clear of undergrowth.
Flint and steel soon lighted a fire, and then he sent forth his call,
the long penetrating whine of the wolf. The reply came from the north,
and, building his fire a little higher, he awaited the result, without
anxiety.

The dry wood crackled and many little flames red or yellow arose.
Tayoga heaped dead leaves against the trunk of a tree and sat down
comfortably, his shoulders and back resting against the bark. Presently
he heard the first alien sound in the forest, a light tread approaching
That he knew was Willet, and then he heard the second tread, even
lighter than the first, and he knew that it was the footstep of Robert.

"All ready! It's like you, Tayoga," said Willet, as he entered the
open space. "Here you are, with the house built and the fire burning
on the hearth!"

"I lighted the fire," said Tayoga, rising, "but Manitou made the
hearth, and built the house which is worthy of Him."

He looked with admiration at the magnificent trees spreading away on
every side, and the foliage in its most splendid, new luxuriant green.

"It is worthy, Tayoga," said Robert, whose soul was like that of the
Onondaga, "and it takes Manitou himself a century or more to grow
trees like these."

"Some of them, I dare say, are three or four hundred years old or
more," said Willet, "and the forest goes west, so I've heard the
Indians say, a matter of near two thousand miles. It's pleasant to
know that if all the axes in the world were at work it couldn't all be
cut down in our time or in the time of our children."

Tayoga's heart swelled with indignation at the idea that the forest
might be destroyed, but he said nothing, as he knew that Willet and
Robert shared his feeling.

"Here's your rifle, Tayoga," said the hunter; "I suppose you didn't
have an occasion to use your bow and arrows."

"No, Great Bear," replied the Onondaga, "but I might have had the
chance had I come earlier."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I saw on the grass a human trace. It was made by a foot clothed in a
moccasin, a large foot, a very large foot, the foot of a man whom we
all have cause to hate.