SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
371 
THE RED GODS 
-*» 
Now the Four-way Lodge is opened : Now the hunting 
winds are loose, 
Now the Smokes of Spring go up to clear the brain; 
Now the young men’s hearts are troubled for the whisper 
of the trues, 
Now the Red Gods make their medicine again ! 
Who hath seen the beaver busied? Who hath watched 
the black-tail mating? 
Who hath lain alone to hear the wild goose cry? 
Who hath worked the chosen waters where the ouana- 
niche is waiting? 
Or the sea-trout’s jumping crazy for the fly? 
Who hath smelled wood-smoke at twilight ? Who 
hath smelled the birch log burning ? 
Who is quick to read the noises of the night? 
Let him follow with the others, for the young men’s feet 
are turning 
To the camps of proved desire and known delight ! 
Do you know the blackened timber? Do you know that 
racing stream 
With the raw, right-angled log- jam at the end? 
And the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may 
bask and dream 
To the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend? 
It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and 
traces 
To a silent, smoky Indian that we know, 
To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight on 
our faces, 
For the Red Gods call us out and we must go ! 
