"After they had built it Black Rifle sat on that side and the Great Bear on this," said Tayoga, "and while they were getting it ready the Great Bear concluded to add something on his own account to the supper." "What do you mean, Tayoga? Is this mind or eye?" "A combination of the two. The Great Bear is a wonderful marksman, as we know, and while sitting on the log that he had drawn up before the fire, he shot his game out of the tall oak on our right." "This is neither eye nor mind, Tayoga, it is just fancy." "No, Dagaeoga, it is mostly eye, though helped by mind. My conclusion that he was sitting, when he pulled the trigger is mind chiefly. He would not have drawn up the log unless he had been ready to sit down, and everything was complete for the supper. The Great Bear never rests until his work is done, and he is so marvelous with the rifle that it was not necessary for him to rise when he fired. Wilderness life demands so much of the body that the Great Bear never makes needless exertion. There mind works, Dagaeoga, but the rest is all eye. The squirrel was on the curved bough of the oak, the one that projects toward the north." "You assume a good deal to say that it was a squirrel and surely mind not eye would select the particular bough on which he sat." "No, Dagaeoga, eye served the whole purpose. All the other branches are almost smothered in leaves, but the curved one is nearly bare. It is only there that the casual glance of the Great Bear, who was not at that time seeking game, would have caught sight of the squirrel. Also, he must have been there, otherwise his body could not have fallen directly beneath it, when the bullet went through his head." "Now tell me how your eye knows his body fell from the bough." "Ah, Dagaeoga! Your eye was given to you for use as mine was given to me, then you should use it; in the forest you are lost unless you do. It was my eye that saw the unmistakable sign, the sign from which all the rest followed. Look closely and you will detect a little spot of red on the grass just beneath the bare bough. It was blood from the squirrel." "You cannot be sure that it was a squirrel. It might have been a pigeon or some other bird." "That, O, Dagaeoga, would be the easiest of all, even for you, if you could only use your eyes, as I bid you. Almost at your feet lies a slender bone that cannot be anything but the backbone of a squirrel. Beyond it are two other bones, which came from the same body. We know as certainly that it was a squirrel as we know that the Great Bear ate first a wild goose, and then a wild duck. But it is a good camp that those two great men made, and, as the night is coming, we will occupy it."