Often, when time did not press, he would lead me, clumsy as I was, so that I could almost touch the muzzle of a crouching deer, or lay a hand on a yellow panther, before it slipped like a live streak of light into the gloom.

He was an eery fellow, too.
Once I found him on a high river bank at sunset watching the red glow behind the blue shadowy forest.
"There is blood in the West," he said, pointing like a prophet with his long arm, "There is blood in the hills which is flowing to the waters.
At the Moon of Stags it will flow, and by the Moon of Wildfowl it will have stained the sea." He had always the hills at the back of his head.

Once, when we caught a glimpse of them from a place far up the James River, he stood like a statue gazing at the thin line which hung like a cloud in the west.

I am upland bred, and to me, too, the sight was a comfort as I stood beside him.
"The _Manitou_ in the hills is calling," he said abruptly.

"I wait a little, but not long.