e on this road, senor," he said, "in which we could
rest the night?"

"Ten miles from here," said he, "and not far from the road you take is
the best house we have in the forest. It is yours, master, for as long
as you honour it."

"Come then," said Rodriguez, "and I thank you, senor."

So they all started together, Rodriguez with the leader going in front
and Morano following with all the bowmen. And soon the bowmen were
singing songs of the forest, hunting songs, songs of the winter; and
songs of the long summer evenings, songs of love. Cheered by this
merriment, the miles slipped by.

And Rodriguez gathered from the songs they sang something of what they
were and of how they lived in the forest, living amongst the woodland
creatures till these men's ways were almost as their ways; killing what
they needed for food but protecting the woodland things against all
others; straying out amongst the villages in summer evenings, and
always welcome; and owning no allegiance but to the King of the Shadow
Valley.

And the leader told Rodriguez that his name was Miguel Threegeese,
given him on account of an exploit in his youth when he lay one night
with his bow by one of the great pools in the forest, where the geese
come in winter. He said the forest was a hundred miles long, lying
mostly along a great valley, which they were crossing. And once they
had owned allegiance to kings of Spain, but now to none but the King of
the Shadow Valley, for the King of Spain's men had once tried to cut
some of the forest down, and the forest was sacred.

Behind him the men sang on of woodland things, and of cottage gardens
in the villages: with singing and laughter they came to their journey's
end. A cottage as though built by peasants with boundless material
stood in the forest. It was a thatched cottage built in the peasant's
way but of enormous size. The leader entered first and whispered to
those within, who rose and bowed to Rodriguez as he entered, twenty
more bowmen who had been sitting at a table. One does not speak of the
banqueting-hall of a cottage, but such it appeared, for it occupied
more than half of the cottage and was as large as the banqueting-hall
of any castle. It was made of great beams of oak, and high at either
end just under the thatch were windows with their little square panes
of bulging bluish glass, which at that time was rare in Spain. A table
of oak ran down the length of it, cut from a single tree, polis