157 THE BIRDS OF BATTLE GROVE. 
But when—a few years later—at another nesting time, 
they beheld three beings garbed as were similar ones in 
their winter homes in the southland. Their color of 
face was different from those shot gun fiends of the 
southern jungles. These birds were unused to danger 
in their nesting grounds from beings like these and went 
on about their mating and nest building as in the other 
summer days that had come and gone. As now they 
feared nothing—nor had they anything to fear. They 
hardly noticed the bipeds who went plodding about over 
the even and uneven stretches of the prairie about them. 
This trio of the human had minds that were soaring 
through space—and holding time as it were—to the 
bid of their convenience—yet each mind was soaring 
within its own orbit with telepathic messages for the 
unseen. With all of this, the little twittering birds had 
nothing to do. This trio with automatic actions and 
minds preoccupied—were dreamers—but of such and 
with such the epochs in time must count. They were 
leaders and pilots of their kind. They were making 
but a casual inspection about them—but little as the di- 
version was, it forecasted a change in the face of na- 
ture about them. The grass must change—the trees 
must change and the birds must change or disappear. 
A few years later—1886—the writer of these pages 
came upon the site of the events above described. It 
was by no means his first entry there, but it was time 
for comparison—for marking a line— change of an 
epoch. A cluster of human dwellings were erected on 
the level plain back from the grove and I became a tem- 
porary resident thereamong. It was autumn then and 
the tinted leaves of Battle Grove gave the landscape 
