The Eyes of the Woods: A Story of the Ancient WildernessAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
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The Eyes of the Woods: A Story of the Ancient Wilderness
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction
But no scalplock appeared in the bushes, nor did he hear any sound of
advancing men. But he was not deceived by the false appearance of peace.
The Shawnees and Miamis had drawn their lines about the hills and they
would search until they found. Now they had two great chiefs instead of
one, both Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, to drive them on. Meanwhile he
would wait patiently and take his ease until they did find him.
He was conscious of the passage of time, but he took little measure of
it until he noticed that the sun was low. Then he ate another portion of
the turkey, rolled himself into a new position on the leaves, and
resumed the patient waiting which was not so hard for one trained as he
had been in a school, the most important rule of which was patience.
The entire day passed. At times he dozed, but so lightly that the
slightest movement in the thickets would have awakened him. He was
neither lonely nor afraid, and his sense of comfort grew. He had been
carried back farther than he knew into the old primitive world, in which
shelter and ease were the first of all things. He was content now to
wait any length of time while the warriors searched for him, and he was
so still, he blended so thoroughly into his surroundings, that the other
people of the maze accepted him as one of themselves.
He saw a splash of flame over his head, and a scarlet tanager, alighting
on a bush not a yard from him, prinked and preened itself, until it felt
that its toilet was perfect, when it deliberately flew away again. It
had not shown the slightest fear of the motionless youth, and Henry was
pleased. He intended no harm to the creatures of the forest then, and he
was glad they understood it.
A small gray bird, far less brilliant in plumage than the tanager,
alighted even nearer, and poured forth a flood of song to which Henry
listened without moving. Then the gray bird also flew away, not in fear,
but because its variable mind moved it to do so. It too had come as a
friend and it departed without changing. A rabbit hopped through the
brush, stared at him a moment or two, and then hopped calmly out of
sight. Its visit had all the appearance of a friendly nature, and Henry
was pleased once more.
When the twilight came, he crept through the bushes to the little stream
in the ravine and drank deep again. His glance caught a pair of red eyes
gleaming through the dusk and he saw a wildcat treading lightly. But the
cat did not snarl or arch its back. Instead it moved away without any
sign of hostility and climbed a big oak, in the brown foliage of which
it was lost to Henry's sight. In his mind the thought grew stronger that
he was being accepted as a brother to the wild, and it gave him a
thrill, a compound of pleasure and of wonder. Had he really reverted so
far? It seemed to be so, for the time, at least.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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