286 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



I paddled slowly back to my landing, with the stars 

 twinkling and bobbing in the water off the bow, and 

 curled up, after a quiet, lonely supper, for the night, 

 pleasantly aware of the soft, melancholy whistle of a 

 screech-owl, the sounds of little creatures coming down 

 to the lake to drink, the splash of a fish jumping for in- 

 sects, and once, as I woke and turned, of a swish 

 through the grasses, as if a fox had been prowling 

 near the provisions. 



The next morning the birds were busy at their 

 matins, but along all the shore-line, where the green 

 forest came down to dip its toes in the lake, not a crea- 

 ture was visible. There was, however, a fresh track 

 in the mud near my canoe, as if a wizened foot had been 

 set down there: a coon had visited the water, perhaps 

 to drink, perhaps to wash a morsel of food. In half an 

 hour after breakfast I came out of the woods upon 

 the Post Road. It was too early for the day's pro- 

 cession of touring automobiles (whose passengers would 

 rush past this knoll where I stood nor ever guess that 

 the trail behind me led into the real Narragansett 

 country, which they would never see) ; but in the fields 

 men were astir. Already I could hear the hot "click, 

 click, click" of a mowing-machine. A hay-rake rattled 

 past on the road. Smoke was coming from the chim- 

 neys of the gray houses that looked almost like great 

 bowlders on the low, green plain between the Post Road 

 and the yellow sand bar a mile or two away. The 



