276 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



his busy brain in the lists against tooth and claw. 

 Therefore, he borrowed the resilient strength of ash 

 and yew for his bow. He tipped his arrows and his 

 spears with edges and points of chert and flint. He 

 learned to concentrate his strength and the whole 

 energy of his body upon a piercing point. Soft as 

 were his hands, unarmed as were his feet, symmetri- 

 cal and harmless as were the white arches of his 

 teeth, he introduced a new tactic into defensive 

 warfare and became the Napoleon of the forest. 

 The spies of his keen senses anticipated an ap- 

 proaching enemy. He knew what he could not 

 know nor explain. He could not be lost in unfamil- 

 iar surroundings, nor his judgment be confused by 

 a scenic surprise — a range of intuitive perception 

 which his descendants have lost, and left to the 

 homing-dove and the listening caribou. The great 

 cat, however well padded his feet and cautious his 

 step, could not approach him unknown, but while 

 waving his tail in anticipation of a man-feast, and 

 gazing with his wide yellow eyes, would hear the 

 sudden twang of a string and the whiz of a shaft, 

 which if it did not kill him, warned him to be con- 

 tent with less toothsome prey. 



