MEN OF THE TREES 



own. And, moreover, now that I have decided that you 

 are king of the birds, by reason of this, all the birds of 

 the forest will be your enemies and so you had better 

 stay right here with me.' That is why it is, cocks and hens 

 always stay with men." 



At times I suspected that their stories subtly alluded 

 to the relation of the black and white races. There were 

 many inferences regarding the strong and the weak, or 

 the strong and the cunning. Such was the story told of 

 the fox and the wolf. At this length of time and writing 

 from a different continent, I cannot recall how the quar- 

 rel started or why the wolf began chasing the fox. I only 

 remember the story took a whole evening to relate be- 

 cause all the country through which they passed was 

 described in minute detail. But the story ended like this. 

 "At last the fox rushed into a great cavern where there 

 was an overhanging rock. He was dead beat and put his 

 front paws up against the rock and called, *help, help, the 

 rock is falling.' And the wolf, who was hard behind him, 

 afraid of being crushed by what he thought was a falling 

 rock, stood up on his hind legs and pressed against the 

 rock with his fore feet as hard as he could, when the little 

 fox doubled back and escaped, leaving the wolf expend- 

 ing all his energy in a futile task." 



Again, there was a story of the elephant and the canary. 

 It was never clear to me why they fell out or became such 

 rivals. But it seemed that the canary generally got the 

 better of the elephant and although the greatest animal 

 of the jungle challenged the little bird on many an occa- 



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