emed to remove the last doubt
from the mind of even the little gray mate. After that they stayed
most of the time close about my tent, and were never so far away, or
so busy insect hunting, that they would not come when I whistled and
scattered crumbs. The little Killooleets grew amazingly, and no
wonder! They were always eating, always hungry. I took good pains to
give them less than they wanted, and so had the satisfaction of
feeding them often, and of finding their tin plate picked clean
whenever I came back from fishing.

Did the woods seem lonely to Killooleet when we paddled away at last
and left the wilderness for another year? That is a question which I
would give much, or watch long, to answer. There is always a regret at
leaving a good camping ground, but I had never packed up so
unwillingly before. Killooleet was singing, cheery as ever; but my own
heart gave a minor chord of sadness to his trill that was not there
when he sang on my ridgepole. Before leaving I had baked a loaf, big
and hard, which I fastened with stakes at the foot of the old cedar,
with a tin plate under it and a bark roof above, so that when it
rained, and insects were hidden under the leaves, and their hunting
was no fun because the woods were wet, Killooleet and his little ones
would find food, and remember me. And so we paddled away and left him
to the wilderness.

A year later my canoe touched the same old landing. For ten months I
had been in the city, where Killooleet never sings, and where the
wilderness is only a memory. In the fall, on some long tramps, I had
occasional glimpses of the little singer, solitary now and silent,
stealing southward ahead of the winter. And in the spring he showed
himself rarely in the underbrush on country roads, eager, restless,
chirping, hurrying northward where the streams were clear and the big
woods budding. But never a song in all that time; my ears were hungry
for his voice as I leaped out to run eagerly to the big cedar. There
were the stakes, and the tin plate, and the bark roof all crushed by
the snows of winter. The bread was gone; what Killooleet had spared,
Tookhees the wood mouse had eaten thankfully. I found the old tent
poles and put up my house leisurely, a hundred happy memories
thronging about me. In the midst of them came a call, a clear
whistle,--and there he was, the same full cravat, the same bright cap,
and the same perfect song to set my nerves a-tingling: _I'm here,
sweet K