So thorough was his mastery over himself that the small wild game began to believe by and by that he was not alive.

Birds sang freely over his head and the hare hopped through the undergrowth.

Yet the hunter saw everything and his very stillness enabled him to listen with all the more acuteness.
The sun which had arisen great and brilliant, remained so, flooding the world with golden lights and making it wonderfully alluring to Willet, whose eyes never grew weary of the forest's varying shades and aspects.

They were all peaceful now, but he had no illusions.

He knew that the hostile force would send out many hunters.