Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/404

 of that man; profit and loss; the rise and fall of stocks: what were they all to us?

Peace! After many a year of battle with the world, we had retreated, thankful for a place of retreat, and found rest peace. Now and then an acorn dropped; now and then an early leaf fell down; and once I heard the whistle of an antlered deer getting his herd together to lead them down the mountain; but that was all that broke the perfect stillness. A chipmunk dusted across the burrs, mounted the further end of the mossy trunk, lifted on his hind legs, and looked all around; then, find ing no hand against him, let himself down, ran past my elbow on to the ground again, and gathered in his paws, then into his mouth, an acorn at our feet. Peace! Peace! Who, my little brown neighbour in the striped jacket, who would have allowed you to take that, even that acorn, in peace, down in the busy, battling world? But we are above it. The storms of the social sea may blow, the surf may break against the rocky base of this retreat, may even sweep a little way into the sable fringe of firs, but it shall never reach us here.

I looked at the Prince as the sun went down. I had so longed to know the secret of his life. Yet I had never doubted that he was all he looked and seemed: a genuine, splendid Prince.

Strange, nay, more than strange, that men should live together in the mountains, year after year, and not even know each other's names, not even the place