following on wild-goose chases after Old Whitehead the eagle and
Kakagos the wild woods raven that always escaped me, only to
find that within the warm circle of my camp-fire little wild folk
were hiding whose lives were more unknown and quite as
interesting as the greater creatures I had been following.

One day, as I returned quietly to camp, I saw Simmo quite lost in
watching something near my tent. He stood beside a great birch
tree, one hand resting against the bark that he would claim next
winter for his new canoe; the other hand still grasped his axe,
which he had picked up a moment before to quicken the tempo of
the bean kettle's song. His dark face peered behind the tree with
a kind of childlike intensity written all over it.

I stole nearer without his hearing me; but I could see nothing.
The woods were all still. Killooleet was dozing by his nest; the
chickadees had vanished, knowing that it was not meal time; and
Meeko the red squirrel had been made to jump from the fir top to
the ground so often that now he kept sullenly to his own hemlock
across the island, nursing his sore feet and scolding like a fury
whenever I approached. Still Simmo watched, as if a bear were
approaching his bait, till I whispered, "Quiee, Simmo, what is
it?"

"Nodwar k'chee Toquis, I see little 'Fraid One'" he said,
unconsciously dropping into his own dialect, which is the softest
speech in the world, so soft that wild things are not disturbed
when they hear it, thinking it only a louder sough of the pines
or a softer tunking of ripples on the rocks.--"O bah cosh, see!
He wash-um face in yo lil cup." And when I tiptoed to his side,