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A twig upon which he caught in falling saved his life undoubtedly, for the sparrows were after him and he barely escaped into a knot hole, leaving the angry horde clamoring outside. But nothing could reform him. One morning at daylight a great crying of robins brought me to the window. Meeko was running along a limb, the first of the fledgelings in his mouth.
Two men, lounging at a fire on a ledge of the hills, raised their eyes to the mountain-side beyond and above them, and one said presently: "The second time. It's a woman's voice, Pierre." Pierre nodded, and abstractedly stirred the coals about with a twig. "Well, it is a pity the poor Cynthie," he said at last. "It is a woman, then. You know her, Pierre her story?" "Fingall! Fingall! Oh, Fingall!"
"You know from the bakehouse one can hear everything that is said in the kitchen," said Mother Barberin, "and when I knew that they were talking about you, I naturally listened. I got nearer and then I trod on a twig of wood that broke." "'Oh, we're not alone, said the gentleman to Barberin. "'Yes, we are; that's only my wife, he replied.
He found, as he had expected, that the ground upon which the upper end lay was firm and dry. He stepped down with great care, and was pleased to see, as he walked forward, that no trace of a footmark was left. "Be careful, Nelly," he exclaimed when he joined her, "not to tread on a stick or disturb a fallen leaf with your feet, and above all to avoid breaking the smallest twig as you pass.
He still had an hour or more before four o'clock, and eager to make Guy's triumph as Indian as possible, he cut off all the Woodchuck's claws, then strung them on a string, with a peeled and pithed Elder twig an inch long between each two. Some of the claws were very, very small, but the intention was there to make a Grizzly-claw necklace. Guy made for home as fast as he could go.
Their eager tongues were out, and all the unknown sounds were forgotten in the new sensation of lapping a man's palm, which had a wonderful taste hidden somewhere under its friendly roughnesses. They were still licking my hands, nestling close against me, when a twig snapped faintly far behind us. Now, twig snapping is the great index to all that passes in the wilderness.
A twig bent down, a few stones strung along a path, or any other of a hundred small signs, served to tell every patriot when and where to meet his friends. A man riding about, breaking a twig here and there, or making some other sign of the kind, could call together a large force at a chosen spot within a few hours.
The wild folk of the bush situated within a mile of the camp, however, became as much accustomed to his presence as though he were in truth one of themselves, so thoroughly and constantly did he patrol their range during his guardianship of the wounded hound. In this period he learned to know every twig in that strip of country, and practically every creature that lived or hunted there.
"The promises of God," he afterward remembered, sustained his soul, "so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for joy." The news now reached the ears of the mayor that Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Thereupon the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh the role of the twig in the mountain stream.
"What nixt?" asked Larry, with a strange mixture of determination and uncertainty in his tone the former being founded on his character, the latter on his ignorance. "Follow me. Don't touch a twig or a blade o' grass on the banks, an' make as little noise as you can. Running water leaves no trail."
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