Some ten minutes later a splendid butterfly, all glowing orange and maroon, came and settled on the back of the dead heron, and waved its radiant wings in the tranquil light.
Although in the open clearings it was full noon--the noon of early September, hot and blue and golden--here in the lofty aisles of the forest it was all cold twilight. Such light as glimmered down through the thick-leaved tree-tops was of a mellow shadowy brown and a translucent green, changing from the one tone to the other mysteriously as the eye shifted its backgrounds. One tall trunk, long ago shattered and broken off just below the crown by a stroke of lightning, stood pointing bleakly toward a round opening in the leafy roof, reaching upward a thin-foliaged, half-dead, gnarled and twisted arm.
In the outer shell and coarse strong bark of the stricken tree life lingered tenaciously, but its heart was fallen to decay. Near the base of the arm a round hole gave entrance, through the shell of live wood, to a chamber in the hollow heart. The chamber had yet another entrance, beneath a knot, higher up on the opposite side of the trunk. Through these two holes filtered a dim warm light, just strong enough to show a huddle of small, ruddy-brown, furry shapes sleeping snugly at the bottom of the chamber.
The forest was as still and soundless as a dream, under the spell of the noonday heat. But presently the silence was broken by the approach of heavy footsteps, now crackling as they crunched the dry twigs, now muffled and dull as they sank into beds of deep moss. They were plainly human footsteps, for no other creature but man would move so crudely and heedlessly through the forest quiet. Every one of the wild kindred, from the bear down to the wood-mouse, would move with a furtive wariness, desiring always to see without being seen, either intent upon some hunting or solicitous to avoid some hunter.
Down a shadowy corridor of soaring trunks came into view two figures--a tall heavy-shouldered lumberman, carrying an axe, and a slim boy with a light rifle in his hand. It was the lumberman, booted and long-striding, who made all the noise. The boy, in moccasins, stepped lightly as an Indian, his eager blue eyes searching every nook and stump and branch as he went, hoping at every step to surprise some secret of the furtive wood-folk.