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It was very quiet in the wood that day, scarcely a bird abroad; now and then a still, winged insect threaded the green and gold arcades of the great fern, or a long sigh from the sea, passed up the hill along the top of the pines.

The trail cleared the scrub and went between young trees, skirting a hollow planted with lean, sombre boles. The ground beneath was white with the droppings of shadow-haunting birds. Beyond that there was more open going among splay-footed oaks, crusted thick with emerald moss, all a-drip from their outer branches with the filmy lace of lichen. Then a pleasant grassy space of pines before the close locked redwoods began.

I do not know how long we had been following before we heard the jays, but we had come into a little open glade where lilies grew, through which the trail seemed to lead to one of those places where you have always wished to be. There we heard them crying our approach. Herman said they were jays, and the first one might have been. I know the high, strident call they have, which another hears and repeats, and another, until all the wood is cautious and awake. But one jay calls exactly like every other, and about this there was a modulation that assured while it warned; that said: “I have heard; have no concern for me.” And even I could not have fancied so much as that in the mere squawking of jays.