Then, taking a pot of brown stain from my valise,
I proceeded to dye my face and hands and my union suit
itself a deep butternut brown.
"What's that for?" asked my friend.
"For protection," I answered. "Don't you know that all
animals are protected by their peculiar markings that
render them invisible? The caterpillar looks like the
leaf it eats from; the scales of the fish counterfeit
the glistening water of the brook; the bear and the
'possum are coloured like the tree-trunks on which they
climb. There!" I added, as I concluded my task. "I am
now invisible."
"Gee!" said my friend.
I handed him back the valise and the empty paint-pot,
dropped to my hands and knees--my camera slung about my
neck--and proceeded to crawl into the bush. My friend
stood watching me.
"Why don't you stand up and walk?" I heard him call.
I turned half round and growled at him. Then I plunged
deeper into the bush, growling as I went.
After ten minutes' active crawling I found myself in the
heart of the forest. It reached all about me on every
side for hundreds of miles. All around me was the unbroken
stillness of the woods. Not a sound reached my ear save
the twittering of a squirrel, or squirl, in the branches
high above my head or the far-distant call of a loon
hovering over some woodland lake.
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