peckers, but the one I admired the most was a great, big 

 fellow, almost as large as a crow. It had a red head and a 

 black body, and sometimes it would sound a loud, trumpet 

 sort of a call, which could be heard a long way off. After I 

 had got to bp a big tree, the crows chose me for a nesting-place, 

 and for many years every summer one or more pairs would 

 build their nests and rear their young in my top. They were 

 jolly, noisy birds, quite sociable and very talkative, and al- 

 ways told me all the news about things that happened both 

 near at home and far away. But there came a time when 

 two big prairie hawks, fellov/s with wide wings and flashing 

 eyes, concluded they would use me for nesting purposes — and 

 then the crows had to go somewhere else. The hawks were 

 fine, grand -looking birds, but they were rather quiet, and not 

 of a neighborly disposition. And from the time they began 

 to build their nest until they flew away with their young, all 

 the other birds and the squirrels and the rabbits stayed away 

 and most carefully kept out of sight. But the greatest honor 

 I had in this respect was when two grand giants of the air, 

 a pair of great bald eagles, made their summer home with me. 

 But, like the hawks, they talked very little. Sometimes, after 

 their nesting- time was over and their young were fledged, they 

 would give a loud and piercing scream as they were circling 

 through the air; but, save that, they said nothing. The next 

 year they came back and went to fixing up their old nest as if 

 they were going to live with me that summer. But right 

 then some of the red-skinned men found them out, and would 

 slyly creep up and shoot at them with their bows and arrows, 

 and bothered them so much that at last they flew away, and 

 they never came back to nest with me again. 



"Among the many interesting things I saw in those old 

 days was a grand council of the red men of the plains, which 

 was attended Wy some hundreds of chiefs and headmen of dif- 

 ferent tribes. They came on horses, and stayed several days. 

 The weather was warm, and they were almost in a naked 

 condition, but they wore many strange and queer-looking orna- 

 ments. Their hair was stuck full of eagles' and hawks' feath- 

 ers, they had chains of bear-claws on their necks, and belts 



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