creatures. At a time when the weather was quite warm, a 

 small party of them, men, women, and children, came to the 

 river on foot, on a fishing trip. They were armed with bows 

 and arrows and a kind of spear' that they used in spearing 

 the fish. Some of the fires they built were near me. I saw 

 these red people frequently, and had a good look at them. 

 The children were quite naked, and the men and women 

 nearly so. Besides catching fish, they killed with their bows 

 and arrows many small animals and birds, which they roasted 

 on their fires and ate. When not fishing, hunting, cooking, or 

 eating, they lay around in the shade, asleep. In all their ac- 

 tions they didn't seem much above the beasts and other things 

 that prowled in the woods, and were a good deal uglier in ap- 

 pearance. All of a sudden, they snatched up their things and 

 the smaller children, and ran away as fast as they could. 

 Some of my crow friends then lit on the site of their camp, 

 and helped themselves to such scraps as they could find, and 

 I asked one of them what made the wild men leave in such a 

 hurry, and he said it was caused by the approach of another 

 party of red men, mounted and armed, who were mad at those 

 with us in the woods. A few days later some vultures came 

 sailing around, and stopped to rest awhile in a tall tree near 

 me. They looked quite plump, as if they had been living well, 

 which I learned they had. From their talk we all got the 

 news that the war party overtook the peaceful fishers and 

 hunters, and killed all of them, even the little children. They 

 cut off the heads of the dead, and otherwise cut and hacked 

 them, and then left their bodies on the ground — and the vul- 

 tures and the wolves did the rest. What makes these wild 

 men-things take a delight in killing those of their own kind 

 is something I do not understand. None of the other creatures 

 in the woods do that way. 



"It was somewhere along about these times, and when I 

 was still quite small, that I formed a close friendship with some 

 little birds. There were two that came to me one bright, 

 warm morning, when I was in full leaf, and hopped on and 

 through my branches, talking to each other in low, sweet tones 

 as they fluttered through my leaves, from twig to twig. After 



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