All at once as his eyes were fixed on the low, green thicket opposite him, he saw that it was shaken; something was on its way to him. He watched the top of the thicket being parted to the right and to the left. With a great leaping of his heart he waited, motionless where he sat on the grass. What creature could be coming? Then he saw just within the edge of the thicket a curious piece of head-gear--he had no knowledge of any such hat. Then he saw a gun barrel. Then the hand and forearm of a man was thrust forward and it pushed the underbrush aside; and then there stepped forth into the open the figure of a hunter, lean, vigorous, tall, athletic. The hunter stepped out with a bold stride or two and stopped and glanced eagerly around with an air of one in a search; he discovered Webster and with a look of relief stood still and smiled. There could be no mistake. Webster held imprinted on memory from a picture those features, those all-seeing eyes; it was Wilson--weaver lad of Paisley, wandering peddler youth of the grey Scotch mountains, violinist, flutist, the poet who had burned his poem standing in the public cross, the exile, the school teacher for whom the boy caught the mouse, the failure who sent the drawing to Thomas Jefferson, the bold figure in the skiff drifting down the Ohio--the naturalist plunging into the Kentucky wilderness and walking to Lexington and shivering in White's garret--the great American ornithologist, the immortal man. There he stood: how could it be? It was reality yet more than reality. The hunter walked straight toward him with the light of recognition in his eyes. He came and stood before Webster and looked down at him with a smile: "Have you found him, Webster?" Webster strangely heard his own voice: "I have not found him." "You have looked long?" "I have looked everywhere and I cannot find him." The hunter sat down and laid on the grass beside him his fowling piece, his game bag holding new species of birds, and his portfolio of fresh drawings. Then he turned upon Webster a searching look as if to draw the inmost truth out of him and asked: "Why do you look for the Kentucky Warbler?" Webster hesitated long: "I do not know," he faltered. "Something in you makes you seek him, but you do not know what that something is?" "No, I do not know what it is: I know I wish to find him." "Not him alone but many other things?" "Yes, many other things." "The whole wild life of the forest?" "Yes, all the wild things in the forest--and the wild forest itself." "You wish to know about these things--you wish to know them?" "I wish to know them." The hunter searched Webster's countenance more keenly, more severely: "Are you sure?" There was silence. The forest was becoming more wonderful. The singing of the unseen birds more silvery sweet. It was beyond all reality. Webster answered: "I am sure." The hunter hurled questions now with no pity: "Would you be afraid to stay here all night alone?"