with the old gentleman, and assured him he was absolutely right, and
that the biggest fool I ever knew was the one who was talking to him,
he laughed outright, and replied that now he knew that I was quite
different from most white men, and that he believed some day I would be
the equal of an Indian. When I first heard his opinion of white men, I
regarded him as a pretty sane man, but afterward, when I tried to get
him to include not only his brother Indians, but also himself under the
same definition, I could not get him to agree with me, therefore I was
disappointed in him. He was not the philosopher I had at first taken
him to be; for life has taught me that all men are fools--of one kind
or another.


OO-KOO-HOO'S WOODCRAFT

But to return to woodcraft. Emerson says: "Men are naturally hunters
and inquisitive of woodcraft, and I suppose that such a gazetteer as
wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts for would take place in
the most sumptuous drawing rooms of all the 'Wreaths' and 'Flora's
Chaplets' of the bookshops" and believing that to be true, I shall
therefore tell you not only how my Indian friends managed to keep their
bearings while travelling without a compass, but how, without the aid
of writing, they continued to leave various messages for their
companions. When I asked Oo-koo-hoo how he would signal, in case he
went ashore to trail game--when the other canoes were out of sight
behind him--and he should want someone to follow him to help carry back
the meat, he replied that he would cut a small bushy-topped sapling and
plant it upright in the river near his landing place on the shore.
That, he said, would signify that he wished his party to go ashore and
camp on the first good camping ground; while, at the same time, it