“Black Rifle!”

“None other.  It is far north for him, but he has come, and he and the Great Bear were glad to see each other.  Here they stood and shook hands.”

“There is not a possible sign to indicate such a thing.”

“Only the certain rules of logic.  Once again I bid you use your mind.  We see with it oftener than with the eye.  White men, when they are good friends and meet after a long absence, always shake hands.  So my mind tells me with absolute certainty that the Great Bear and Black Rifle did so.  Then they talked together a while.  Now the eye tells me, because here are footsteps in a little group that says so, and then they walked on, fearless of attack.  It is an easy trail to follow.”

He announced in a half hour that they were about to enter an old camp of the two men.

“Any child of the Hodenosaunee could tell that it is so,” he said, “because their trails now separate.  Black Rifle turns off to the right, and the Great Bear goes to the left.  We will follow Black Rifle first.  He wandered about apparently in aimless fashion, but he had a purpose nevertheless.  He was looking for firewood.  We need not follow the trail of the Great Bear, because his object was surely the same.  They were so confident of their united strength that they built a fire to cook food and take away the coldness of the night.  Although Great Bear had no food it was not necessary for him to hunt, because Black Rifle had enough for both.  The fact that the Great Bear did not go away in search of game proves it.

“I think we will find the remains of their fire just beyond the low hill on the crest of which the bushes grow so thick.  Once more it is mind and not eye that tells me so, Dagaeoga.  They would build a fire near because they had begun to look for firewood, which is always plentiful in the forest, and they would surely choose the dip which lies beyond the hill, because the circling ridge with its frieze of bushes would hide the flames.  Although sure of their strength they did not neglect caution.”

They passed over the hill, and found the dead embers of the fire.

“After they had built it Black Rifle sat on that side and the Great Bear on this,” said Tayoga, “and while they were getting it ready the Great Bear concluded to add something on his own account to the supper.”

“What do you mean, Tayoga?  Is this mind or eye?”

“A combination of the two.  The Great Bear is a wonderful marksman, as we know, and while sitting on the log that he had drawn up before the fire, he shot his game out of the tall oak on our right.”

“This is neither eye nor mind, Tayoga, it is just fancy.”

“No, Dagaeoga, it is mostly eye, though helped by mind.  My conclusion that he was sitting, when he pulled the trigger is mind chiefly.  He would not have drawn up the log unless he had been ready to sit down, and everything was complete for the supper.  The Great Bear never rests until his work is done, and he is so marvelous with the rifle that it was not necessary for him to rise when he fired.  Wilderness life demands so much of the body that the Great Bear never makes needless exertion.  There mind works, Dagaeoga, but the rest is all eye.  The squirrel was on the curved bough of the oak, the one that projects toward the north.”